


So Falls the World

by monstersinthecosmos



Category: Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Blood Drinking, Bloodplay, Cunnilingus, F/F, F/M, Face-Sitting, Femdom, Graphic Violence, Heart Eating, Murder, Pegging, Rimming, Threesome - F/F/M, Vaginal Fingering, Vampire angst, sad old romans, vampire typical violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-26
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2019-05-28 20:53:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15057599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monstersinthecosmos/pseuds/monstersinthecosmos
Summary: Daniel's gone back to Armand, Marius is feeling sorry for himself, Pandora calls him on his bullshit.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> In my mind this is a one shot but it turned out kinda long so I broke it into chapters at the suggestion of Tumblr LMAO. 
> 
> Big big BIG BIG shoutout to [superhiki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/superhiki) for reading this as a WIP at various intervals the last couple months and giving me the encouragement to continue. :D
> 
> ALSO THANKS TO [SHEEPSKELETON](http://sheepskeleton.tumblr.com/) for helping me find some cool ancient poetry translation stuff. :D
> 
> Named after & heavily inspired by [So Falls the World by Ulver](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXNWGXj5Os4) <3

_legends fail and houses fall_  
_in great shame, in elliptical ruins_  
_a king gouges his eyes out_  
_forbidden love takes poison_

* * *

 

 

It’s nearing dawn. She doesn’t feel it in her bones yet, but she can hear the birds outside, and it shakes her out of her stupor. She isn’t sure how long she’s been standing in front of the mirror--it’s been hours, but she can’t remember exactly when she came home—and it makes her mouth quirk into a tiny smile to realize how still she’d gone. Even with only the dim lamps her nude body gleams white. Skin like stone now, something changed, but the same familiar curves, the feminine softness. It was gradual, perhaps, this coming of age—she isn’t sure how long she’s looked like one of the true ancients—but she supposes she doesn’t mind. It isn’t unlike the way she’d accepted the first silver hairs weaving away from her temple as a mortal, or that she’d begun to accept the slightly-lopsided set to her breasts. These are things that she will live with.

But standing there, bold like Hadrian as Mars, she admires the length of pink silicone strapped to her pubis. His, of course, is limp, unused for millennia, where hers stands swollen and tall from her body. She shifts her hips, leaning her weight to the other leg, and watches the way it bobs and shines in the light. She presses a fingertip to the head, testing its give, and lowers her gaze to look at it directly.

It’s firm, but pliant. Somewhere between human and vampire. She lays a lazy stroke down to the base, fingers tracing the sculpted veins, and its weight there in her palm feels monumental.

Birds outside again, and she turns to see that the sky is getting light. For a moment she considers sleeping in it, and waking with it, but being at home in her own skin is an important ritual, one she does not wish to mar.

So she is whole again when she steps out of the harness, and she smooths down the patch of hair between her legs—trimmed short like it had been the night she died—and goes to close the curtains. No need for theatrics anymore, no need to seal herself away. Heavy drapes are fine, and she enjoys the creature comfort of the plush modern bed. The blankets are soft on her cold skin, and she reaches for her phone on the nightstand to pull under the covers with her.

A _selfie_ , they call it today. She grins at the picture, taken when she’d first tried it on. Standing without ceremony in the middle of the room, face obscured by the reflection of the phone in the mirror. But that’s her, unmistakably. The crooked posture as she’d canted her hip to one side, the long white fingers splayed across the toy’s fake testes. The slight paunch to her stomach and the crease in her midsection that never went away. It’s her same body, the one she’s lived in, and it’s amazing that she can still feel surprised.

Nearing dawn here, and she’s not sure where Marius is, but she sends the picture to him, just in case. It’s marked _Read_ almost immediately, and she curls on her side, draws her knees to her chest as she awaits the response.

 _A tremendous thing!_ he answers.

She pulls the blanket over her head, trapping herself in the dark with the soft blue science light, and doesn’t even smile on purpose as she taps letters into the glass.

 _i feel powerful._ , she tells him.

Little bubbles appear and disappear, as if he’s debating his next move. She almost sends another message, impatient, but finally: _You already were powerful._

Oh! Her face scrunches in mock irritation, even though he’s not here to see it, and she considers the easy way she can thread it to an argument. But the dawn is approaching, and she feels soft and easy and knows there isn’t time. Her free hand trails down over her breast, her belly, her hair, and she types back with one thumb. The little pops and clicks of each letter make such a strange rhythm that she thinks she will always associate with this era.

_i am equalized, dominant, the leader. women are no longer mere receptacles of pleasure !!_

She can practically see the wry, condescending look in his eyes. _You realize these have been around for centuries?_ Bubbles rise and fall, rise and fall. _Millennia, even. I believe you may have found one when we were mortal!_

 _not a pink one :)_ she smiles in real life, too, and adds _its sparkly_ .

Her eyes are starting to feel heavy, and her laughter is sleepy when the phone says _Read_ but he doesn’t respond. She wonders where he is in the world, if the dawn is approaching him, as well. He always becomes so uncharacteristically vulnerable. Affectionate and open and maybe even a bit clingy. She thinks of their early days, sharing a sarcophagus, listening to his heartbeat in the warm dark space. She would press herself to his back, and their limbs would twist together, and he would link their fingers, wherever her hand was. Sometimes on his hip bone, sometimes his chest. Two hundred years of that, and something throbs inside at the thought that no one else alive will ever know him when he’s young. She’s the only one.

Before she can stop herself, she hits the button to call him, and it goes black in her cocoon as she presses the phone to her ear.

“Pandora,” he answers after the first ring. His voice has the familiar depth and warmth, but he seems far away. It isn’t as assertive as she expected him to be. Maybe he’s just tired.

“Where are you?” she asks. She knows she sounds tired, too, almost slurring. Her eyes close and she lets his voice wash over.

“Nowhere.”

Too tired to laugh. “The sun is coming up here.”

“Mmm,” he says. She can’t tell if he’s distant and distracted or if she’s becoming untethered from the world. He’s moving around—she can hear a door opening, then the static of blowing wind on the tiny microphone. He must have stepped outside. “France.”

“France?” her voice has gone up an octave, breathy and girlish, almost gone.

“I’m in France.”

“Oh.”

She misses this, his voice with her in the final moments. Centuries pass but it feels… right. Her mind buzzes with words, fragments, different languages from different places, and she isn’t sure which one is the best way to tell him. But he’s sighing on the other end, and she’s too tired for it to hurt, and she’s back in those early years. She can imagine the press of his lips to her forehead, the strong cage of his arms around her as she finally slips away.

“Goodnight, Pandora,” he says.

“Talk to me,” is the last thing she can manage, but he understands. Without explaining any of it, he understands. And there’s a cadence, the same one from before, and rolling R’s and hard C’s, and the sound of their dead mother tongue would tear her apart if she were awake enough. But no, no. The sun is coming, and her body is settling, and in the abyss there is no time, no pain, and it only feels like home.

“ _Hoc tamen expositum cunctis nullique negatum, numen ab humani solum se labe furoris vindicat. Haud illic tacito mala vota susurro concipiunt,_ ” she can’t feel her hands, her legs—she’s almost ready to believe he’s here with her like he used to be, “ _Nam, fixa canens mutandaque nulli, mortales optare vetat: iustique benignus saepe dedit sedem totas mutantibus urbes_.”

She doesn’t hear the rest.

 

 

 

Panic seizes her chest the moment she wakes, and her first instinctual breath of air for the night is ragged. Disused lungs ache and she touches her own throat to feel for her pulse. It can be like this sometimes—it’s frightening but routine, and she counts the faint beats to adjust. _Carotid artery_ , it’s called. A word she didn’t know back then, when this began to happen. But she counts, and breathes, and reminds herself what year it is, and when she’s sure she knows where she is she reaches for her phone.

It’s hibernating now, half-dead and lost in the sheets somewhere, and the panic even returns in the quick moment it takes to search. But she watches her own white hand finally lift it, and the deft swipe to unlock, and she’s immediately opening the call history to see how long he was on the phone with her.

One hour and forty-six minutes.

It’s about the length of the time difference, she calculates, before the sun would’ve risen for him. The thought of him mumbling old poetry to no one or listening to her sleep, curled around his tiny modern phone, aches in a way that surprises her. She rubs a hand over her breast bone, marveling that this much time can go by and she can still hurt, that time and wisdom cannot solve suffering.

The sky is barely dark and she knows she has to wait before she can go to him. An hour and forty-six minutes, maybe, before it’s safe. The phone is cold like her skin, and her anxiety tells her not to stray from it, but she plugs it in on the nightstand. And stares at it.

Marius is sleeping, she knows. He won’t call. But the device itself is a lifeline that she can’t let out of her sight. She unplugs the charger and moves it from room to room as she gets ready, taking extra time to bathe and preen. 

It's odd, she realizes, the way impatience can still fester sometimes. That centuries pass and time becomes abstract, unimportant. What’s the value of impatience when you have eternity? Impatience is for mortals.

But when it comes to Marius she can never quell the sense of urgency. Maybe from the time they lost, and maybe because she isn’t sure she’d survive it again. She flutters around her apartment, tries to keep her hands busy, packs a bag and twists her hair into a fishtail braid, and waits and waits. She opens the drapes and watches the sun sink lower, and she taps her foot and chews on her lip until it finally seems dark enough.

In France. With Lestat, she suspects, but he’s not answering her calls by the time she touches down. She can communicate with the others if she needs to,by Mind Gift and phone alike—Lestat is usually too desperate for attention to ignore her—and yet… no, she won’t. In her heart this feels heavy, and private, and getting to Marius feels like a surgical operation. No need to involve anyone else, and if she’s satisfied by his well being she can leave again before anyone notices. 

Not answering, but she knows he’s down there. It’s in the thoughts of the others. He’s making the rounds in the castle, like he always does when he rises, making sure everything is in its place. He used to do this in the shrine; replace the flowers, light the candles, brush away the dust. He is a creature of ritual. And although they’ve come so far past needing to feed every night, Pandora knows, simply knows, that once he’s checked on everything, he will leave to hunt. She heard it in his voice.

And she doesn’t need to feel him, or hear him, to know his shape immediately when he finally steps through the front doors. His posture has never changed, nor his gait. There’s a warm flood of relief that passes over, just knowing he’s there, and she can’t hear his thoughts but she hears the low thrum of his heartbeat. Steady and old, so much like Hers used to be. Her instinct is terror, revulsion, but it’s easier to focus on the affection, just seeing him there. 

She watches the way he strolls up the driveway, casual and collected, though she knows it’s an act. _Nowhere_ , he’d said this morning. 

He seems to walk an appropriate distance away, like he’s trying to evade any witnesses, but once the driveway curves into the tree line he takes to the sky. Her heart rushes in her ears and she scrambles to follow him. It’s terrifying, letting the Blood guide her, listening to his heartbeat to know the way. But the idea of him there, so close, the sound of him, is enough to keep her strong.

They’re still in France, somewhere outside Paris, when he comes down. She stays a distance aways, on a roof at the end of the alley, watching the way he smooths down his clothes and tries to straighten his wind-tousled hair. She should do the same, and will, but not yet. He’s cut his hair tonight, medium length, and he has to run his fingers through it several times to keep it from falling over into his eyes. There’s a smile blooming from behind her hand as she watches. He looks so very… modern. It’s surreal, but she thinks it actually suits him. Red pants and a grey henley beneath a fitted leather jacket— _barbarian garb_ , she knows he’d say—but it looks good. And when he’s set himself back in place he approaches the mouth of alley, puts his hands in his pockets like it’s the most natural thing in the world, and enters the gaudy-looking bar across the street. 

Now it’s her turn to tidy herself—she straightens her jacket and re-does her braid, adjusts her little backpack across her shoulders. Light as a cat as she drops down into the alley. 

She spots him immediately when she finally comes inside. Towards the middle of the bar, one foot up on the rung of the barstool, hands circling a sweating glass. It’s dark and her shoes stick to the floor as she comes closer and slips onto the stool beside him.

It’s not that she expects a warm welcome or anything. He’s been ignoring her calls all evening, after all. But that there’s no reaction makes her deflate a little. Perhaps it was foolish to think she could accomplish a stealth mission like this. 

He doesn’t say anything, and doesn’t look at her, but he reaches forward on the bar to a second drink and slides it towards her. 

Oh.

The glass is cold and damp, not the same sensual comfort as ordering something hot. Still, a form of camouflage that she accepts, and she even lifts it to her lips to pretend to sip. It’s an instinct to inhale the scent, the way she would in a café, but instead of the sweet, vaporous steam she’s used to it’s chilly and acidic and makes her wrinkle her nose as she puts it back down. Marius is turning his glass around in a circle, staring down into it. He hasn’t even looked at her.

“Well,” she says, and she tosses her braid back over her shoulder like it’s nothing, “I can admit I thought you were handsome from afar, but this childish sulking isn’t a good look on you.”

His fingers stop flexing and the glass stops moving. She turns to watch his profile and sees the unhappy set to his mouth. He lifts his own glass and almost looks like he’s really going to sip it, then finally loses his cool. It thunks against the top of the bar; she’s surprised it doesn’t break. 

“Childish,” he says, voice flat, and finally looks at her. Blonde fringe falling over one of his eyes, just enough to dispel the attempted gravitas. In time, if she sticks around long enough, this expression will make her skin crawl, it always does. Timeless, this one, the mix of stubbornness and condescension. She’s seen it thousands of times.

But it’s a matter of seconds before he falters. His face goes slack, and he looks down at his hands, and the brief flash of genuine pain in his eyes that she sees before he looks away strikes her in the chest. There’s empathy, and love, and she even touches his forearm over his leather jacket, but there’s no guilt. Not like there used to be. 

“Ignoring me isn’t childish?”

The corner of his mouth twitches in a dry smile. “Stalking me is childish.”

“Oh please, Marius.”

His shoulders fall and he pinches the bridge of his nose. It’s such a human gesture.

The music in the bar swells overhead. She doesn’t think they’d be able to even hear each other if they were mortals. It’s some revival of the 1970’s, all tinny guitars and over-mixed organs. There’s a stoned groove to it that’s making her relax, though, and she rubs her hand up and down Marius’s arm before finally pulling away.

“In any case,” she adjusts her bag and makes like she’s going to stand, “I just needed to know you were alive. I’ll leave now. Answer your phone next time.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he grumbles. “Someone would’ve told you if I wasn’t _alive_. You’re being dramatic.”

“Right,” she actually stands now, and his head snaps to the side to watch. “I’m dramatic. Of course, darling. Well, I’ll leave you to it, then.”

His hand comes around her bicep before she even sees him move, and she’s actually surprised. She does a quick sweep around the bar to see if anyone noticed, but thinks they’re safe. When she meets his eyes again her heart breaks a little bit. It’s real, it is. And the guilt is almost back.

“Don’t go,” he mumbles. “I’m sorry. Stay.”

Tight squeeze on her arm, and his eyes close when she pets his face with the back of her knuckles. But she sits back down, and his grip eases, and he lets her hold his hand when she gently pries it away. His fingers are weak and loose and she rubs circles into his palm with her thumb.

No Mind Gift between them, and it’s as frustrating as it’s always been, but she hopes that her hands are saying _Tell me what’s wrong, Marius._ And the uncharacteristic buckling of his posture says _I don’t know how to._

This is normal, though. She remembers nights like this, in the beginning. The way Marius could… struggle with things. With words. Not with articulating himself, exactly, but with admitting any of it out loud. She remembers the nights finding him defeated, isolating himself somewhere in the garden. And she’d suffer, all those years, trying to coax it out of him. Touching his shoulders and his face and pleading until she was distraught herself. 

But they’re older now. She’s older. And she’s not going to beg.

Marius opens his mouth like he’s going to speak, but then closes it. He looks up at the ceiling, then down towards the row of liquor behind the bar. She looks, as well, and in between the bottles she sees their faces in the mirrored wall. Their eyes meet in the reflection and his hand curls tighter into hers.

His voice is so soft when he finally speaks.

“Daniel left.”

_I see._

She lets the silence hang between them, even through the nagging old instinct to comfort him. She swirls her drink with her free hand, still watching him in the mirror, and waits. 

Eventually he looks away, and he props his elbow on the bar to hold his head in his hand. He’s shielding his eyes and rubbing his temples with his fingertips.

“I said something. To Armand,” he says, and she’s still not going to beg, but she squeezes his hand to let him know she’s listening. “I was too harsh, perhaps. Daniel… didn’t appreciate it.”

“And I suppose you didn’t apologize.”

The words make him wince. In the beginning, when all of this was new, she might have rushed to console him. She might pepper his face with kisses and whisper poetry into his ear and offer him a bleeding wrist. But now, with the loud music pulsing all around them, and their faces cast yellow in the electric lights, she just laughs. He begins to recoil his hand, like he’s been burned, but she doesn’t let go.

“A pleasure,” he says, and brushes the fringe away from his eyes, “as always, to know that my pain is amusing to you.”

Another wave of laughter, and she claps her hand over her mouth to stifle the noise. He turns away from the mirror to face her. 

“Did you expect me to pity you?” she asks. She sets herself sideways on the barstool to meet his gaze, and reaches out her foot to toe at the bottom of his pant leg. Still no Mind Gift, of course, but there’s frustration and stubbornness burning in his eyes, maybe even humiliation. “Two thousand years old and you still haven’t learned?”

“Haven’t learned what?”

“That people aren’t objects in your life.”

There’s a pause as he mulls it over. “You think I treat people like objects?”

“I think you know better than to act coy about it. With me, of all people.”

The way his face falls brings all the old creases back to the surface and she wants to laugh again. Two thousand years and he can still be a fool, and his face is still the same, and her heart still aches the way it used to. 

“Well, tell me then,” she says. She crosses one leg over the other and rests her hand on her knee. She raises her eyebrows. “What did you say to Armand?”

He groans and looks away from her.

“Tell me.”

She continues to hold his hand—he’s trying to draw away again but she doesn’t let him—and instead he covers his face with the other. His shoulders seem to collapse inward, and she remembers finding him like this, wracked with guilt, curled on the ground. But they’re in public now, and hiding his own shame is another art he’s mastered. 

“This is very typical of you, Marius,” she lifts his hand away from the bar to rest it in her lap. “And if you want my opinion—“

“I don’t.”

“—I think you need to stop obsessing over yourself and learn to apologize. This self-superiority nonsense is very tired.”

He peeks at her from between his fingers and scowls. And she feels the power in his Blood when he finally pulls away from her. 

“Did you come all the way here to gloat?” 

“Of course not, darling. Nor did I come to witness you sulking over something that’s your own damn fault.”

“Pandora…” 

“Would you like to tell me what’s really bothering you?”

She’s staring hard, still in denial that she can’t feel him on some subliminal level. Centuries of this, her whole life—she should know by now, she should stop trying. But it’s been millennia and she can still get lost in his eyes, always seeking, because it always feels like the answer is just barely out of reach. It isn’t something she can hear, or sense, the way she’d be able to with someone else. But it chills her, down her spine, squeezing at the back of her head, that just from repetition she can read him like a book. 

And she was teasing, just a little, she can admit to herself. But suddenly it’s too intense. Her pulse is beginning to flutter again, and there’s a head rush that makes the room warp around them, and for a moment she isn’t sure what year it is, or what country they’re in, or where she found her clothes. 

Marius’s face softens, sympathetic and worried, and he turns, stands, pets her hair and kisses her forehead as she catches her breath.

His lips brush her cheek as he speaks. “I’m sorry.” Thumbs stroke her orbital bones. “I’m here, I have you.”

Muscles relax beneath the soft touches, and the beat of the loud music keeps her connected. It takes a moment to take hold of her senses, but it’s remarkably easier with him there to spot her. She feels herself settling back down, and when the thirst begins to burn through the fog she can see the same need lurking in his eyes. She’s too disoriented to taunt him by laughing, but she knows he won’t admit it unless she pushes him. His hands are still on her face when she puts hers on his shoulders.

“Marius, you need to kill something.”

The old human crease flashes in his brow and his fingers go stiff. He almost pulls away, but she tilts her head, pressing into his palm, and it makes him stay. No Mind Gift, never the Mind Gift, but she expects the denial, the shame. _I know you came here to kill something_ , she wants to say to him, and there’s fear and pain hovering just beneath the feigned coldness. He rolls his eyes, a beat too late.

“Don’t be barbaric.”

But the idea of it is already tingling on the surface of her skin, and she scoots forward to the edge of the barstool to be closer to him. “You don’t have to pretend, Marius,” she says. She leans in close, right up against his ear. “Not for me. I’m not judging you.”

His frame goes stiff and rigid and he opens his mouth to protest but doesn’t get the words out before she kisses the corner of his jaw. 

“ _Concipiunt,_ ” she whispers. “ _Nam, fixa canens mutandaque nulli, mortales optare vetat: justisque benignus, saepe dedit sedem totas mutantibus urbes.”_

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

_tragedies repeat themselves_  
_in a perfect circle_  
_wrong wrong wrong_  
_as in death_

* * *

 

It’s, of course, a coincidence that the young woman between them an hour later has dark eyes and thick black hair—slight of stature but fierce. Sharp-tongued and witty. Cute, but mean, and the resemblance hangs heavy in the room, unacknowledged. She’d been watching Marius at the bar, and Pandora made the move, and all of it seemed a bit too perfect. 

She’s drunk and soft beneath Pandora’s hands, all curves and warm flesh, her head swimming with images and desire. Pandora leans against her from behind, hooking fingers into hip bones, mouthing the fluttering artery in her throat. They’re both watching Marius—Pandora can see him both with her own eyes and in the mind of the girl—he’s hovering back near the door. No one else would be able to see the discomfort in his posture; it’s a subtle thing. Stiff shoulders and a vague darkness in the blue eyes. It makes Pandora laugh a little bit, softly, right into the skin, and the hair raises on the girl’s neck. 

Typical of him to pretend he’s so reserved. But she sees it tighten on his face when she draws back her lip, and the girl’s low groan soaks the space between them, and her fangs graze the surface. He shifts his weight to his other leg and swallows.

She nuzzles at the girl’s jawline, teases her earlobe with teeth, watching as Marius’s eyes drift lower. He looks to where Pandora’s hands are moving slowly over the buttons of the girl’s jeans. She’s already rocking her hips in tiny circles, instinctive or subliminal, suggestive, blithely unaware that she is being opened like a gift, presented as an offering. And he sees, and his hand comes up to touch his face as he considers it, and the corner of of his mouth is twitching into a smile despite how hard he’s trying to control it.

It’s a dingy room. The girl’s room. Bland colors and a single dim lamp. There’s noise all around them from the street, and the neighbor’s stereo, and someone arguing next door. No one will hear, or care, the way she moans as Pandora touches. Pandora pulls her jeans open, pushes them low on her hips, just enough, and slips her hand beneath the panties. Smooth skin, shaved, soft and damp as she traces over the lines. Hot and wet like blood.

There’s disapproval in Marius’s eyes. Pandora can sense it already—he’ll pretend that this is cruel, unnecessary, _barbaric_ —but she knows if she just pushes a bit harder… 

Other people might wither under that gaze. 

She pulls at one hip to turn the girl around, fingers still tracing lazy circles inside, but facing her now, able to kiss. Their eyes are both closed, enjoying it, and she knows they’re both feeling him there. Watching. 

The girl tastes like sugar and booze. She’s drunk enough that she feels like she’s floating. Her body leans in, presses tight to Pandora, like she can anchor herself amidst the sensation. Pandora loves this part, she always does. Always has. She’s always enjoyed the heavy sexual energy as a precursor to the blood, the taste of the pheromones. And there’s submission, something that yields to her, that always makes her feel more powerful than the simple violent strength she will exert shortly. 

The pad of her finger presses firmly against the girl’s clit, and she swallows the gasp of surprise and pleasure as she uses the force to steer her backwards. She might fall if Pandora weren’t there to balance her, and she’s startled when the backs of her legs hit the bed. In the corner of her eye, Marius’s shoulders go stiff, and he’s leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. His heartbeat his thudding slow and steady beneath the bass of the neighbor’s stereo, but it skips when Pandora gives the girl a gentle shove so that she falls back against the mattress.

There’s a flash of images cutting into the girl’s thoughts. She’s focusing on Pandora’s face, even as the room spins around her in the drunken haze, but her mind is conjuring all the things she wants them to do, the ways she wants to be taken. She’s picturing that they can both ride Marius—herself over the swollen, hard cock and Pandora over his face—and that they can lean in towards each other and kiss. Kiss while they use him like he’s an object. She likes the way Pandora kisses.

“Oh, darling,” Pandora says to her. She looks over her shoulder at Marius, and she can tell by the look in his face that he saw the vision, too. He still seems uncomfortable, and his jaw works side to side as he grinds his teeth. It makes Pandora chuckle under her breath. A fool.

But she turns away, and the girl lifts her hips so that Pandora and peel her jeans down. And she’s staring at Marius, pulling her shirt over her head, running a fingertip in a circle around her nipple as an invitation as Pandora settles between her legs. He doesn’t come forward right away, merely tilts his head as he watches. Her fingers on her own skin are light, teasing, an attempt at seduction, but when Pandora begins to taste her she squeezes herself in earnest. 

There’s something visceral about it every time. It’s been millennia, and how many thousands of victims, but the tart flavor of women always reminds her of the dreams. It’s all softness and heat and feminine energy as her tongue traces each line. There’s a coppery taste, almost like blood, and she moans herself as she leans in against the heat. She can feel the blood right there, beneath the surface, and the temptation to bite already makes her break out in chills. But no, she’ll wait. She raises her eyes to look up over the skin, still working her mouth, to stare at him. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows.

But she remembers this, wanting it. This taste in the dreams. They were always in gardens, and She was always in control. She’d pet the back of Pandora’s head, and scratch softly behind her ears, and somehow… 

Even after everything, in the shrines, she’d think of it. She’d wonder if Akasha would mind, if she’d enjoy it. She’d comb Akasha’s hair, and set her necklaces straight, fix her clothes. And when Marius was gone she’d sit in silence, stare for hours. In the dreams she tasted like a woman—Pandora’s mortal brain had no way to know differently—and she’d wonder as she touched Akasha’s face and plaited her hair if there would be a taste anymore. 

Of course, she knows the answer now. She’s picked it out of the minds of her victims as they’ve performed the act themselves. No taste, and her body is cold, but that close they can smell the blood, sense its power. 

And oh, how this girl looks like her. 

She’s whining and her hand comes down at the back of Pandora’s skull, the way Akasha would do in her dreams, and her legs are shaking, trying to squeeze closed. Her back arches and Pandora laps at her, probes the opening. The extra fluid gives her a feeling almost like blood does—she can feel, for a moment, the same human ecstasy. The flavor increases for a moment and coats the inside of her mouth. And it’s time. 

It’s something she’s never shared with him before. It wasn’t a habit when they were together in the beginning, and in more recent times he’s seemed so… squeamish. He seems to be handling it well enough so far tonight. She pets over the girl’s pubis as the tremors slow and she relaxes down onto the bed, and looks at Marius again. 

The girl’s heartbeat is thick and loud and she can hear the femoral pulse next to her ear. 

She’d wanted this with Akasha, too. The three of them. 

He’s finally approaching, and Pandora kisses the jutting hip bone, the soft belly. She crawls up, settles next to the girls body and kisses again. Soft and sweet and warm and there’s a shock that bursts through her mind at the taste of herself on Pandora’s lips, but it blends into the warm energy of her orgasm. Her eyes are closed and she’s absorbed in her own sensation for a moment—she only notices that Marius that moved when the bed dips beneath his weight. 

Her eyes open, and she comes up for breath, and she turns to look at him. Her mouth moves like she might speak, but Pandora touches her jaw, and turns her back, and kisses her again to silence her. Marius is combing his fingers through her hair, and he kisses the outside of her ear, then her temple, then her throat. Her body is still thrumming, fresh in aftershock, and she flinches under his cold hand when he cups a breast. Tiny, helpless moans that Pandora swallows. Her nipples go stiff and he squeezes one, maybe a bit too hard, so that she shudders, but she doesn’t ask him to stop.

Pandora wonders what he’s thinking. If he’d ever dreamt of this for the three of them. If it haunts him still.

She pulls away and the girl’s voice floods the room. Her skin is shining in the dull light and her lips have gone swollen and red. Pandora licks at them once more, and continuing is tempting, but she wants to see. She wants to watch. Marius is licking her throat, slowly, a predator. His hand is sliding down, grazing over the curves, and he stops between her legs. She’s oversensitive still, wrung out, and when Marius begins to touch her again she _writhes_.

He looks up at Pandora. No Mind Gift, but the hunger is so plain on his face. It’s burning between them. 

_Do it_ , she wants to tell him, and the thought of it, the proximity to it, hits her the way her thirst does. Sharing this moment with him seems monumental. 

There are no words spoken between them but he nods, and there’s a quick flash of his teeth, enough that it thrills her, before he leans in and sinks into the girl’s throat. 

She’s still writhing, moaning. Her body is alight, every nerve full of frantic heat, still drunk enough to smooth down the edges so that the pain barely registers. Her muscles are going tight and she reaches for Pandora’s hand, crying out and squeezing and biting hard at her own lip. It’s such a messy show of pleasure, so overt, utterly human, but Pandora is watching the subtle way Marius is pressing closer, the way his hand holds her hair out of the way. It’s slow, nearly imperceptible, but the color is creeping into his skin.

_Marius_.

It’s uncharacteristic of him to leave the wound gaping open the way it is. When he pulls away it gushes down, curling around the back of her neck, snaking through her hair into the sheets. It’s red on his mouth, his teeth, and the scent is instant once exposed to the air. It’s only a moment, she’s not sure how quickly time is passing, if seconds are stretching without limit, but the weight of their age hits hard in her chest, and she can feel it in his eyes, and before she realizes it’s happening she’s leaning over the girl to kiss him. 

Oh. _Oh_. She knows she denies this, that she needs him like this. But the shape of him, the taste, the way he kisses, are all so familiar that it always feels like coming home. It’s in the way his tongue comes to meet hers, and the curl of his finger beneath her chin, the deft way he’s cut himself. 

It’s his Blood, ancient and magic, but also the girl’s, and the taste of pleasure still cloying in her mouth, the tang of the alcohol. She tries to scoot closer, hip squeezing against the girl’s body, and she places a hand on the delicate rib cage for leverage. Beneath her, she feels the strain of the lungs, struggling to expand beneath the constricted, aching bones, and she feels the jolt of panic run through the girl’s thoughts. Her heart beats faster and she’s thinking _You’re hurting me_ , but doesn’t have a chance to say it. The sudden pressure on her chest clears the haze of the evening—the booze and orgasm and blood loss—and she’s still disoriented but has finally caught on that something is wrong. _Danger_.

Her little sweaty hand reaches up to the throbbing residual pain in her throat, and there’s cold white terror rushing through when she touches the wetness. Nipples hard still, freezing, and her mind is a swirl of fear as she looks up between their two faces. They pull apart to watch her and she sees the blood on their mouths, their sharp teeth, and she’s so aware of how exposed she is.

There’s a hitched breath, stifled by the crushing weight on her ribs, and she’s ready to scream, but Pandora’s fingers dig deep in the soft meat of her neck, nails slicing through skin and fingers curling around the hard cartilage. She’ll be dead in a moment, Pandora knows, but it’s satisfying to silence her. It happens quickly, crushing the rubbery larynx in her fist, and Marius nips at her bottom lip as the sound of the girl’s gasping and wet gurgling fill the room. It’s an easy twist of her wrist for the whole thing to come out, wet and slippery in her hand.

The body will be cold soon, it can’t last like this, and she draws herself away from Marius to touch the piece to her face. _Hot_ , and the fragrance is potent, and she sucks at the shredded opening of the hollowed tube. Yes, _yes_.

His shoulders go rigid and he sits up straight.The girl is wheezing between them, but she’s growing weak. And Marius seems so… horrified. Human crease between his brows, and a look of surprise, of hurt, so pained that it almost looks like betrayal. 

But Pandora knows better, and she sees it contrasted in his eyes. She knows.

_He likes it._

“Love” she says to him, and drops the clump of cooling tissue. She reaches to paint his bottom lip with her bloodied finger. He takes a shaky breath, and his tongue comes out to taste, and she presses forward until he’s sucking on her. “You don’t have to pretend. Not with me.”

And the expression is one she’s missed. It’s been ages, but she knows it well. It’s a veil that’s lifted, and he’s nervous beneath it, vulnerable. This is him, for real, the one who used to struggle. And it’s clear to her, seeing the restraint, that he still struggles. Her body hurts all over.

_I am the only one who can know_.

“Do it, darling,” she says. The girl’s heartbeat is going tacky and weak and the window is closing. Her fingernails tap against his teeth as she pulls out of his mouth, and she sweeps his bangs out of the way. His cheeks have gone a bit pink. It will take more to make him look human, but it’s a start. He will be warm soon.

Typical of him to act so scandalized, so wounded, but she can tell by the graceful way he plunges through the flesh that it’s been practiced. His fingers form a spade and he enters in the soft part of her abdomen, below the crest of her ribs. The girl would scream if she could, but it’s only a blood-filled rasp and a final twitch of protest before Marius has retrieved her heart. He’s red up to his forearm, and his eyes flutter closed as he bites into it. Like a ripe summer fruit—at least that’s how she remembers them—soft and sweet and dripping down her chin in warm days of girlhood. 

For as long as she’s known him he’s hated making messes, but the way it streaks on his face looks _good_. She puts her hand down into the hole he’d left, still hot, and leans forward to suck at the thick artery dangling between his fingers.

It’s like kissing, akin to making love, sharing it between them. And it’s a thrill to see him disarmed, finally, indulging in ways he won’t admit to anyone else. The violence of it, the dirtiness, makes her moan, and it vibrates through the meat until he moans as well. 

His free, clean hand comes up and holds the back of her head, fingers slotting between the strands of her braid. He massages soft circles into her scalp and it makes her purr.

It’s hard to admit how much she misses him, how the time apart never stops inciting dread, but being here feels so right. It’s like no time has passed at all. It’s still a warm night in Antioch, they’ve never been hurt, the centuries haven’t torn them to pieces. It’s like the years apart never happened.

_I love you_ , she would say, but her mouth is full. And if it were someone else he’d be able to hear the thought, but it seems like he understands, anyway. It’s in the way he drops the deflated heart, and the breathless, desperate way he stares at her, eyes dark and face smeared red for a beat of silence before he leans back in to kiss her. The body has gone limp between them, dead, but she’s still wrist-deep in the chest cavity and savoring the warmth as he bites at her lip. His bloody hand leaves a trail from her jaw and down over her collar bone, then reaches up beneath her shirt, squeezes at her still-soft mid-section. He slides closer on the bed, crushing the body between them. 

The bloodlust usually clears when the victim is dead. They transform from vital, gorgeous life-force into dull husks. The _life_ is the draw. A dead body is not interesting.

But it’s different this time. The mangled, ruined flesh is a token of their pleasure, a symbol. This revealing of himself is too special. It’s dead now, but she’s still throbbing with arousal from what he’s done.

_Marius_ , she wants to say. _Marius, Marius_ , but he’s seized her mouth. His hand runs up and down her side, squeezes around her hip hard enough that it would break a human. She gasps and arches her back, presses closer, feels her lip split beneath his teeth. It isn’t real pain, but it's warm, pleasant, and it stings when he sucks at it. 

It’s often difficult for her to fathom how much of the Queen’s Blood he’s consumed over the years—her own strength has always felt vaguely monstrous and yet she still feels so small in his arms, and she’s still able to feel shocked when he takes her by the hips and flips her onto her back. She lands on the wet corpse—the blood is sticky and cool, soaking through her clothes, and the back of her head settles softly against the frayed throat. There’s a shuffle as he removes his jacket and tosses it to the side, and then it’s just the hard lines and muscles in his chest through his thin shirt. Hands roaming up over her ribs, her breasts, pinching at her nipples as he kisses again. They’re both getting warm and it seems to kindle between them. 

His hips roll down against hers and her legs spread to make space.  It isn't the same as being human, doesn't evoke the same localized thrill. But that it's something he's even doing makes her gasp. Her unused parts don't react more than anything else on her body, but the pleasure is there. She closes her eyes to focus on it and lifts to meet him halfway, to grind against him. 

He's on a precipice, she knows. He usually is. _Yes,_ she wants to tell him, and hopes her body can do it for her. _Show me._ It's a razors edge between his mask and his true self and he's almost… almost…

“Bite me,” she tells him. And his fingers dig in. They leave welts that will be gone by morning. She's not watching his face but she feels the switch in his hands, his mouth. Her lip tingles as it mends itself, and he sucks the last of the blood away before leaning back. But he's gone still, he's holding tight but has paused, so she opens her eyes again.

_A beast_ , she thinks when she sees. The domineering, animalistic expression makes her shudder. It dances down to her fingertips, through her spine. The feeling of being small returns, of being powerless in the most delightful way, and she knows he can ruin her like the body beneath them if he chose to. He exudes strength and control and she remembers wanting this. Back when she was human. He'd been so _tall_ then, back when it was rare. Even thinking of it now makes her flush. 

Craving the pain now, his teeth, isn't the same as how she used to want the stretch and plunge of his cock, but all carnal human desire is amplified in the desperate thirst. It’s worse. 

“Please,” she says. The need to ask again has her nerves singing. She's startled by how much she needs him. 

His thumb strokes over her neck. Still bloody and beginning to stick, and he presses down hard into her artery. Her heart thuds in instinctual panic and she wonders if he can hear it, if it encourages him. But he's still, solid, truly immortal and pulling the frightening old tricks. His mouth opens and his fangs gleam in the yellow light, and she goes to grab his collar to drag him closer, but he pins her wrists above her head before she even sees him do it. 

It _hurts_. It blooms red and washes over nicely, heats her face. _Yes, yes. Show me._

And he finally does. 

It's easy to forget how weakness feels. What danger is like. It's been a long time since injury held consequence. But her body remembers, the Blood knows. And tears are gathering in the corners of her eyes as his teeth break through. When was the last time she's bled like this? 

His hips roll again, useless hardness of his groin digs into her, and she feels the timbre of his voice humming into the wounds. 

And no Mind Gift. Never the Mind Gift. But this is the only way they'll connect like this again. 

It’s almost too powerful to understand. She’s had this with others before, made this connection, but it’s never the same. Between the two of them it’s… too much. It’s an overload of information that she knows will take hours to parse. 

Above them, over her head, he’s holding her wrists so tightly that the bones grind together. It feeds into an intoxicating feedback loop—as he draws the Blood from her she’s exposed in every way and he knows he has permission to be this violent.All instinct in her body fights against the blood loss, tells her to defend herself against the onset of dizziness, the cold, but she relaxes into it, revels in it. Giving in to it feels right. _And he knows._ He’s all hard lines and aggression but she, too, can feel the truth beneath all of it. This is the only time he can see inside and _he knows._

They’re in the garden. 

She used to wonder if it was a real place, or one of Akasha’s design. It was always nearing dusk in the dreams—the sunlight was low and orange and dappled on Akasha’s face. She’d emerge from beneath the quince trees, and her hands were always warm, and she’d pet Pandora’s cheeks with the backs of her knuckles. Tender gestures, of a mother or a lover. She hadn’t known what it meant at first, but it was enough that she followed.

Marius sees it, too. 

In the real world, he’s tearing at her throat again to keep the wounds from closing. But he’s seeing it, too. Akasha, stretched in the grass and picking grapes off the vine. She tastes like sugar and puts her tiny hands on his chest when they kiss. There are tiny flowers from the pear trees in her hair. 

It makes sense now, all of it. Pandora’s feelings about her have been murky, distant. She’s kept it tucked away where it wouldn’t hurt. And Marius…

The pain is subsiding, a dull, sweet ache as he pulls away. It takes a moment to adjust, for the color to settle back into the room, and the darkness, and the noise from the neighbors. Bassy stereo through the wall and traffic from the streets. Sticky dead corpse at her back. Her ears are ringing and she can still taste fruit and copper. He’s let go of her wrists and he’s licking over the healed spot he’d fed on. The blood is gone but it’s like an apology of sorts. He shifts, out from between her legs and crawling up to straddle her, weight resting on her pelvis as he curls over her body. He tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear and stares.

The silence should be uncomfortable. If it were someone else she’d feel obligated to say something. 

It seems like he pushes his bangs back out of instinct when he leans down closer, as if he’s used to the curtain of his blonde hair. He holds it out of the way when he comes in to kiss her again. He’s bitten his tongue, several times. It’s gushing and she can feel the pattern of holes. Strong and utterly Marius, the taste, but it’s still mixed with her own, lingering there.

She lets it fill her mouth before she swallows. It goes down slow, smooth. She doesn’t need much. Once he’s healed she draws away before he can do it again.

It will take hours to parse. Time is abstract and unimportant. She can wait. It will make sense soon.

For a moment she’s drifting, coming down still, and usually she forgets where she is in these moments. But Marius is there to anchor her. She locks her fingers together behind his back and focuses on his weight, pressing her down into the corpse and the mattress. She suspects that his guilt will settle in soon, and he’ll make a fuss about the mess, and his rigidly constructed character will click back into place. But not yet. She closes her eyes and tries to relax, to feel him here. His blood is singing in her veins, and if it weren’t for the distinctly synthetic beat of music through the wall, she’d be able to imagine them in another time. Any time. Anywhere.

There’s a tugging at her scalp and she realizes that he’s taken the hair tie from the bottom of her braid, and he’s gently untwisting each strand. It’s all love and care and tenderness in his hands when he eases her head from side to side to untuck the parts in the back, matted against the body. It creates a new wave of fragrance that rises from the dead human blood. Cold, but no sign of decay just yet. It’s enough that she opens her eyes. 

She takes his wrist and draws his hand to her mouth. The guilt hasn’t taken hold in his face yet—he must still be in the afterglow—and he smiles when she begins to suck the cooled, sticky red from his fingers. The blood itself isn’t satisfying, but the rest is.

“We have to clean up,” he says. 

He eases off of her gingerly, and pushes his hair out of his face again. He goes to the window and peeks through the curtains. A stripe of dirty greenish light hits his face from the outside. He wipes his mouth on the back of his hand.

They haven’t planned this well. 

Pandora sits up and stretches, shakes out her hair. This part always bores her and she admits she doesn’t take it seriously the way he does. But that won’t do. If she were’t so sated she’d think to tease him about it, but after all she’s put him through for the night she thinks better of it. She’ll cooperate.

It won’t be spotless, and enough blood may have soaked into the mattress that the neighbors will notice the smell in a few days, but most of what’s left is pooled in the open chest cavity. If they’re careful, it shouldn’t spill.

They don’t need to speak to know what to do. He arranges the body silently, reverently, takes a moment to shut the eyes and fix the hair. They wrap it in the bedclothes and Marius checks the window again.

But when he turns back to her, he laughs.

“What?” she asks.

“You’re a mess,” he says. His voice is light and soft and amused. And… she looks down and sees the stains down the front of her shirt, and feels the way it sticks to her back. 

Pandora laughs, too.

He takes her by the hand and leads her deeper into the apartment, to the little bathroom. The fixtures have to be forty years old, but it’s… nice. Clean and full of plants. She bends to unzip her boots, and peels the clothes from her body, and she’s content to just rinse off in the shower until she sees Marius leaning over to turn on the faucet for the clawfoot tub. Her clothes are in a heap at her feet, but he folds his and places them neatly on top of the toilet lid.

While the tub is filling he draws closer and touches her hair again. He undoes the last few strands up top and toys with some of the tangles. She notices that her hair tie is around his wrist.

“Come,” he finally says, and gets into the tub. His legs fall open to make space for her, and she settles in a moment later, back to his chest. She shuts the faucet with her foot when it’s full enough.

At first she almost gets on with it, foolishly thinking the goal here was actually to bathe. But the languid way he’s massaging her shoulders makes her stop. She sinks lower into the water and savors the warmth. She’s still feeling generous enough not to tease him, and keeps the laughter to herself, but the whole thing feels silly and predictable and it’s so very Marius of him to tell her to clean up but then stop to relax in a bath. It’s amusing, and she adores him, and she doesn’t taunt.

Eventually he reaches for the girl’s soap on the ledge and begins to lather it over Pandora’s body. The blood has gone stiff and flaky but the soap is still unnecessary—nothing really ever sticks to them—yet she likes the way it smells. She likes his hands, warmer now from the hot water, lovingly attending to every dip and curve. Large hands. His height isn’t uncommon in this century, but it’s never made him seem any smaller.

The water is going gray around them, full of the soap foam and tinged brown with blood. It’s counter-productive to bathing, but she craves feeling the film of it on her skin later. They can take it with them. Sleep in it.

And, the thought of sleep… it’s been such a long night.

She’s ready to either leave or fall asleep right there in the tub, and almost moves to stand, but she hears the click of a shampoo cap, and his hands are in her hair again. He’s so unhurried.

The taste of his blood is still in the back of her mouth and the things she saw are still in a knot. She thinks about how he looked at the bar earlier, how dejected and stiff, and the way she’d goaded him over it. 

Still not guilt. No. She’s forced that feeling somewhere else. But she wishes it didn’t have to be this hard to get the truth from him.

“Do you…” his hands slow and hesitate against her scalp as he pauses. She leans her head back, smearing the bubbles against his chest, so that she can look at him. He offers a timid smile before his hands continue, and he presses gently to position her back in place. “Do you do this to all your victims?”

“Do what?” she rolls her shoulders and slips a little further down into the water, sliding against him. “Eat their hearts? I could tell it wasn’t your first, Marius. Don’t act so surprised.”

“No,” he slows again but doesn’t stop. “The other thing.”

Oh.

“Is that why you bought the…”

He can’t see the way she’s smirking. It delights her more than she can ever explain, waiting to hear what archaic word he’s going to use. If he says _phallus_ she’ll sink in the water and absolutely drown.

“…implement?”

She turns and lays a soft kiss to his knee, jutting out of the water next to her. She doesn’t answer him right away, and he eases her head back into the water to rinse the shampoo. With her head half submerged she can hear the muffled sound of her own heartbeat, bouncing off the sides of the tub.

It might be too much to explain, she thinks. She hovers there, bathwater encasing her in static, the outside world distant and strange. Marius says something—the bass of it is floating somewhere on the surface, and she feels it rumble through his chest. 

_I want them in me_ , she wants to say. It’s too late to send it through the Blood, but maybe he’ll understand soon, nonetheless. As the minutes pass she can still feel him blooming inside her, the transmission becoming clearer. She will puzzle over it for the rest of the night.

So maybe he will, too.

 

 

 

 

She finds clean clothes to wear in the apartment and disposes of her own with the body. Marius is able to zip his jacket up over the blood on his shirt. She comes back to Lestat’s with him. It’s late, the sky is turning blue and the clouds are a rich cherry.The sun is still tucked behind the mountains and not an immediate threat, but if they stay to watch they’ll be pulled under.

Most of the others have gone down already. Younger ones. She can feel the ominous presence of the ancients somewhere nearby, soft at the back of her neck. But Marius holds her hand and leads her down to the space that is his, and his alone.

It isn’t like it used to be. Not entwined, crushed together in the blackness of a sarcophagus. Marius takes off his jacket but crawls onto the bed fully clothed. She falls asleep, face pressed to the stain on his chest, inhaling the scent of the dead girl.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

_as colossus stands, so shall rome_  
_when colossus falls, rome shall fall_  
_when rome falls, so falls the world_

* * *

 

 

Her father is bleeding, walking circles around the hearth. She can smell the blood and it throbs in her chest, squeezes at the back of her throat. She wants to stay. _She wants to stay._

Marius’s hair, full and long again, tickles against her cheek. She feels it there in the haze, like an ecotone between life and death, and she doesn’t want to see her father anymore but she doesn’t want to open her eyes, either. During the day, the blood on Marius’s shirt has gone stiff and stale, and it’s rough on her face, but she worries that if she moves he’ll know she’s awake. He isn’t moving either, and yet she knows he’s awake, too.

What an interesting game.

They used to do this in the beginning and it’s been ages. She maybe gives herself away by breathing in the blood from his shirt too deeply, and he gives himself away by the infinitesimal caress to her hair. 

When they don’t move, they’re the deadest they’ll ever be. Feeling it in him is eerie, because she’s likely the same. Hard and cold, monstrous.

There’s a struggle tearing her between the real smell of old blood in his shirt, here in the real world, and the rich, lustrous blood gushing from her father’s arms in the dream. And she wants to stay, but it never makes a difference. She twitches against Marius’s body, swallows hard, and opens her eyes. It was different, back then, when they’d be encased in the blackness, only able to feel each other. It isn’t the same ritual this time, the same rising from the dead. His electric lights are on a timer and she can see everything.

Immediately, he pets the back of her head. And it’s another struggle, tearing her between being irritated that he’s been awake, watching and waiting, and feeling anything other than comfort.

He needs this, she knows. It’s been settling in her as she slept. She saw it in his blood last night. It’s been unfolding. 

She looks up to his face. And he’s there. _Here_. Staring back down, and it’s the twenty-first century but his eyes are the same. 

“ _Ave_ ,” he says. He leans in to kiss her eyelids, then falls back against the pillows where he’d been. She senses that on a regular night, he’d have already gotten up. He’d be making the rounds, checking things. Making himself useful. But he’s relaxed here, with her. He’s petting her hair, lazily. Content. Okay. 

She tucks her head back where it was and snuggles in closer. Closes her eyes.

“I understand now,” he says. “Why you do it to them.”

Ah, so he slept on it, as well. She chuckles a little, purely performative, and pinches at one of his nipples. “You should try it sometime.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“How is it ridiculous?” she lifts herself from his chest, propped up on an elbow, to look down at him. 

Vague gesture at his body. “You know I can’t.”

She snorts. “So you’re too good to take a dick now that you’re _Prime Minister_?”

“Pandora!” she’s giggling over the incredulous huffing. “You’re an animal. Get off.”

He shifts beneath her, moving like he’s going to get out of bed, but she holds him where he is. Of course, she knows that her strength is a pale imitation of his, but he allows it. 

“I’m serious,” she says, softer now. “You weren’t so afraid of being passive when you were mortal.”

“I’m not…afraid. It isn’t that.”

“Have you…” she fidgets with one of the buttons up near his collar, “never tried? Since you turned?”

“It didn’t seem necessary.”

“You never let Armand?”

He forces out a small laugh, a single beat, and looks away. He maybe answers _No_ but she can’t be sure, it’s too quiet. Too sad.

It hovers over them, stifling. Her inclination, coded into her for thousands of years, is to touch his hair, his face, kiss his temple. Bend to his whim, make him better. It’s difficult to see him like this and always has been. It gnaws at her in the back of her head, tingles up and down her arms. Resisting feels wrong. 

But no, no, no. 

She has to reset her energy to do it, but after a moment she manages to snap out of place. She’s on top of him, straddling his hips, before she realizes she’s even made the move. He looks equally startled.

“What are you doing?” he asks. 

“You should let me.”

He leans back, the best he can, sinking a bit deeper into the pillows to get a better look at her. Seeing him reclined flashes on something subliminal, maybe something she saw in the Blood. It’s like he could be laying in the grass. He’s soft, open. There’s sunlight in his hair.

But it’s gone as soon as she sees it, and he’s rearranging his face. That he’s still trying to play this _character_ should be obnoxious, insulting, but it lights something in her chest and makes her want it even more. She holds him by the shoulders and leans in the meager weight she has, tries to pin him down.

“You’re being ridiculous, let me go.”

His shoulders lift slightly off the bed but she pushes him back. 

“I’ve come all the way out here, Marius, and you’ve barely been honest with me once.”

He shifts, uncomfortable, but doesn’t try to break free. His eyes are a little cold, and they hold each other at a standstill, staring. It’s startling and intimate and her heart skips. His eyes are so blue. 

“What is it, then?” she asks. She leans in close to whisper against his ear. “You don’t want to feel me in you?”

His jaw clenches. She can swear that this close she can smell the summer garden in his skin. It makes her falter, and she presses against him, breathes slow and deep. It awakens something deep, warm, shimmers in her blood.

“…are you smelling me?”

She wants to be sarcastic but moves instead to take handfuls of his hair, rubbing her face into it. And she knows they were never really there but it feels so real. She forgets that she’s trying to push him and eases down. He smells like sunlight and copper and figs. Her heart clenches inside and she braces against him.

“You smell like…”

_Her,_ she wants to say, but it doesn’t come out. _You smell like her._

The tension in his frame eases so that she sinks against him. She doesn’t need to finish the sentence.

He said he understood, but he if asks her about it again, she isn’t sure she’ll be able to explain. If he asks her why it’s so important. She doesn’t know if she can explain why she’s been thinking about the strap-on for weeks, ever since she saw it in a shop window. But she feels his body beneath her and he’s large and strong like he’s always been, hard and masculine and familiar, and…

All the teasing is gone from her voice this time.

“Would you let me?’

She recalls that night in the beginning, in the dark. _It’s symbolic and comforting_. The way he rubs her arms in response is gentle, soft, a hint that he’s open to it, but he doesn’t say it out loud yet.

His skin is tepid, the lingering traces of the girl, and she sees it again in her mind. The sharp lines of his wrist bones, glistening red. The fine blonde hairs of his forearms rising through it. How his face had looked, half smeared in blood. She’d never seen him make such a mess before. Just thinking about it makes her shudder, but it’s pleasant. It activates the same part of her that feels hunger.

She sits up to look down at him. Traces her fingertips along his jaw. 

“I know you enjoyed it, Marius.”

He’s trying to keep the stony set to his face but she sees the flicker of recognition.

“You don’t need to deny it.”

“I…” 

“This is why they keep leaving you, you know.”

There’s a moment where his strength is horrifying, startling, as he pushes her aside to sit up. He runs his hands through his hair, grown back and unruly. She lands to the side, softly, on her hip, and rolls her eyes. 

“You said you didn’t come here to gloat,” he says, voice gravelly. He turns away so she can’t see his face, swings his legs over the side of the bed.

“Well I certainly didn’t come here to placate you while you martyr yourself.”

She thinks of the way he thrust between her legs last night, and the sting of his teeth in her throat.

“Why did you come, then?”

Her mouth sets into a stubborn line. It feels like being caught in a lie. 

He stands and peels the bloody shirt over his head as he crosses the room. He drops it into the wastebasket next to his desk and the lights come on in the walk-in closet as he steps inside. He must’ve done it with his mind. He unbuttons the pants and steps out of them, then turns to her. Completely nude, and so white. Whiter than he used to be. But his face is human and full of hurt. 

“I think you should leave,” he says. It seizes in her chest. Not from rejection but… from everything else. She grits her teeth.

“Fine,” she says. She stands up and runs her hands over the front of her shirt to smooth it down. The girl’s shirt. Marius is already turning circles in the closet, hastily snatching different articles from the hangers. “Fine. You know, this is so typical of you.”

“I’m sure it is,” he mumbles. She watches the way the muscles of his back ripple as he pulls on a clean shirt.

“You know, you act like it’s some grand mystery why they all leave.”

“Pandora,” voice deep, a warning. He buttons his jeans. 

“What are you going to do without him? You don’t have the Parents to distract you anymore.”

And then he’s across the room, and she didn’t even see him move. He’s holding her by the shoulders and his face is inches away. He could destroy her if he wanted to, he could tear her limb from limb, she can feel the power hiding there right under the surface, barely subdued in his fingertips. All that strength, and the insincere threat of violence, but he can’t hold her gaze for more than a few seconds before lowering his head, letting his hair form a veil. His grip loosens enough for her to feel that he’s shaking.

“Please be gone before I return,” he whispers. And then he’s gone himself, as abruptly as he’d appeared.

For a long while she stays there, frozen in place. The room is deep underground but she can hear the castle coming to life above. She suspects that others will sense her soon. The younger ones will leave her alone. Lestat might come pester her. 

Eventually she sighs, and rolls her shoulders, and pads across the carpet to his desk. Her fingers trace the leather-bound book neatly in the center, perfectly aligned to blotter beneath it. Out of spite, she nudges it with a finger to set it off-kilter, just enough that he’ll notice. It’s a heavy thing, archaic really. She wonders where he even found it. 

If she opened it, if she read it, maybe she’d finally get the truth from him. She wonders if he can even admit to himself, in his little book, in his little room underground, with the heavy door that only the oldest can open. And that she doesn’t read it isn’t out of respect for his privacy, but because even if he’s pouring his heart out, even if he’s raw and candid and real in a way he can never be with anyone, it won’t tell her anything she doesn’t know already. She hasn’t been pushing him to be honest for her sake, after all.

So she moves past it, and fetches his shirt from the wastebasket. The blood is stiff beneath her thumbs and she rubs circles into it for a moment before returning to the bed. She curls up on her side, brings the fabric to her face, and breathes it as she falls back asleep. 

 

 

 

No Mind Gift, but it’s not hard to find him. 

He’s up in one of the empty towers that hasn’t been restored yet. She can hear the slow, ancient heartbeat from the bottom of the stairs, unable to feel any other trace of him. She can smell the paint.

_Why did you come, then?_

The longer she hovers, the more likely he is to expect her. After all, she’s sure he can hear her heartbeat, as well. Maybe he can hear the way it trips in her chest as she begins to ascend the steps, paying mind to the way the edges of some are crumbling. As she gets closer, she realizes she doesn’t hear his footsteps, doesn’t hear him moving, but can hear the rapid-fire whisper of his paintbrush.

The door is gone at the top of the stairs, only the heavy wrought iron hinge stuck there, evidence that it existed once. The windows are gone, too, nothing but holes with cracked lattices. A pile of rotting tapestries hunched against a wall, a fireplace full of dirt and feathers, remnants of birds nests. She wonders to the splendor of this room, when it was in use. Wonders what it’s seen. Tries to picture Gabrielle.

Marius is cross-legged on the weathered wooden floor, bent low and leaning on a forearm as his free hand passes back and forth over the rough boards. It looks like he’s in the middle of painting a face, but when she steps into the room he immediately smears it with his palm. His shoulders hunch and he goes still.

She expects him to snap at her. Expects a _What?_ or a _Leave me be_ or a _I thought you were leaving_ , but nothing. The silence is thick and awkward. His hand is trembling around the paintbrush, and he puts it down for a moment to tuck a loose strand of hair behind his ear. The rest of his hair is in a messy bun. When he picks the brush back up, he rolls it between his fingers but doesn’t get back to work right away.

The painting completely surrounds him, trapping him in. It’s still wet, glistening in the moonlight through the broken windows. It doesn’t look like gardens this time, but maybe mountains, forests. She suspects that it’s a replica of the view outside, if she were to check. Still, even in the dark she can tell it’s full of lush greens and minute detail that only a vampire can accomplish. 

She comes closer, carefully, near to the edge. It’s the best she can do without stepping in it. His shoulder blades rise like fins as he curls over himself, and she hears him tap the end of the brush against his teeth in thought. Perhaps he’s expecting her to snap at him, as well.

So instead: “Why the floor?”

Brief pause, and finally he looks over his shoulder at her. There’s a fleck of paint on his cheekbone and rust clotted in his eyelashes. Vulnerable and exhausted. 

“It has to be replaced,” he says softly. “The masonry is salvageable.”

He turns his head back to what he’s doing and begins to cover up the ruined face. Pandora eases her way around, then crouches in front of him. They’re almost eye-level, but the painting provides a buffer.

“I can’t read you, Marius.”

“I’m aware.”

Sigh. 

He’s dabbing at the palette next to his leg, idly blending colors together but not returning to the picture. She wants to touch him, wipe the smudge from his face, but instead respects the barrier he’s drawn around himself.

“Show yourself to me, Marius. How many times did you do this when you were human?”

“I’m not human.”

“Don’t be dramatic.”

The blue and red are swirling together. At first it’s gentle, but it becomes quicker, aggressive, as all wisps of red slowly disappear. 

“I can never be inside you the way Akasha was.”

He tilts his head to the side and chews on his lip. Puts his paintbrush down. Sits up. 

It’s dark and smells like paint and the dry wood floor creaks under her weight. But the sunlight doesn’t seem far away when she looks at him. The taste of blood and fruit and women are stuck inside her mouth.

She doesn’t see him move, but he’s around her suddenly, his knees dragged through the paint. Strong arms around her, and her head is tucked against his chest. The vice grip is tight enough that she thinks he’s tired of keeping himself in check, but she can handle it. It takes a moment to settle, and when she’s ready she embraces him, too. She feels small and takes handfuls of his shirt behind his back.

This probably means _yes_. And it probably means _please_. And _I need you_ and _don’t go._

“Not here,” he finally says. He pulls away enough to look at her. His skin is glowing in the soft white light. He touches her hair and brings their foreheads together. “I don’t want the others to… hear us.”

She laughs a little bit and begins to stand, tugging him up as well. “I’m amazed that you can still be shy after what Armand said about you.”

He bows his head and gestures for her to lead the way. That he took the jab in stride feels like an accomplishment. But it’s not until she’s ahead of him, not watching, that he says to her back, “I can’t be this person with anyone else.”

And it’s genuine this time, she thinks. The way the words stab through her chest. It’s finally something real. And they’re alone, up in the tower. Just the two of them. _Old_.

Old and exhausted and sad.

 

 

 

 

They’d gone back to Marius’s room to change. At least, he’d changed, and washed his face. Pandora had realized that in her haste she hadn’t brought an extra pair of clothes, just the strap on thrown hastily into her backpack. The girl’s clothes would have to do still, but she took it upon herself to take a thick gray sweater from his closet. It was too big on her, dangling low past her fingertips, but she liked how it felt. It smelled like him.

And it’s helping to keep her warm now, folding against him as he pulls them through the air. His heartbeat is close to her ear.

She isn’t sure where they are when he finally sets them down. It doesn’t matter, not really. It’s a house, dark and silent and clean and she hears the lock click open as they approach up the front walkway. He doesn’t let go of her hand.

Somehow it feels like they’ve crossed into some inner sanctum when they come inside. He turns the lights on by touch this time, leading the way through the halls. It isn’t a large house, as he’s been known to enjoy, but it’s… cozy. It’s lived in. It doesn’t have the same museum quality as some of the other places he’s kept—it’s more modest, and the books on the shelves look worn and loved, like ones he actually reads. She can’t be sure without the explicit confession, but she somehow knows that this is his… hiding place?If that’s the right word. She can see it in her mind, that he would want these nights away from everything, from Lestat, somewhere to take the mask off. A little house.

That they’re here for such a specific task feels clinical all of a sudden, and she hesitates when they reach the doorway of a bedroom. Practical, again. Not designed to death, but comfortable. And she freezes there when it dawns on her.

This was their room.

There are small clues like the hoodie hanging on the back of the closet door and the pair of purple Cons kicked off next to the bed, forgotten there from last time.One night stand is pristine, with just the lamp and an analog alarm clock, the other scattered with personal effects and a nearly-ruined copy of _Doctor Sleep,_ read too many times _._ It washes over slowly, and the more she stares the more she sees. And she can’t feel him, but she sees how his shoulders tighten. He squeezes her hand and doesn’t have to explain a thing.

So here they are, and the icy grip of frustration that’s been closing around her spine for the past two nights is fading, like shedding a skin. If it weren’t so dire she might feel smug about it, but she feels like she can breathe, finally, and there’s no spite left anymore.

She tugs at his sleeve to get him to turn, and there are no words as she slides her hands beneath his sweater to ease it off his body. Slow and gentle, and they’re silent as he complies, pulls it over his head. She kisses his collar bone, then his shoulder, rises up on her toes for the corner of his jaw. Her hands find the button of his pants and work them open, leaving a trail of feather light touches from his navel to his hipbone, to the dent in his back. He touches her face and she kisses his palm. His cheek presses to her temple.

The room is stifling quiet, and her stomach flutters for a moment, trying to read if he’s comfortable enough, if it’s too awkward. And she’d wanted this—she’d dictated it, really—but the crushing sense of intimacy is suddenly terrifying.She wonders if they should’ve found another victim to share, to blunt the unease, but the thoughts leave in a haze as he touches beneath her chin, tilts her head back. And no Mind Gift, but she can tell that he knows what she’s thinking.

Soft kiss on the lips, chaste and reverent, as if she hasn’t so recently seen him flourishing in depravity. Her nerves sing when she tastes him, though. It’s just a bit, just enough, and when he pulls away there’s a shy smile, full of warmth and love, stained red. She licks the rest of it from his mouth and gives him a little shove on the chest to move him towards the bed. That he gives beneath her hands at all is only generosity.

Idly she fusses with the strap of her backpack on her shoulder, traces along the adjustable buckle. He’s removing the rest of his clothes and she supposes it’s her turn now. She crosses the room to put her bag down on a dresser. The top drawer is cracked open, like the owner left in a hurry, and there’s just enough light for her to see that it’s scattered with junk inside. A Nina Hagen CD, a copy of MW, a solved Rubik’s Cube. With her back to Marius, she nudges the drawer shut. The bed creaks from behind her as he sits and it reminds her of the aching silence in the room, pressing against her on all sides.

“Turn around, Marius,” she tells him, without looking. No spite left, she’s sure of that. It isn’t spite. But the hunger is stinging in her and she can still feel the phantom pain of his teeth tearing at her throat. Heat flushes in her face at the thought of it. She wants to give it back.

She waits to hear the bed shift before turning around to check. “Hands and knees, darling,” she adds, and her heart beats faster as she watches him comply.

It’s easier to prepare without him watching, gives her a moment to find the right place in her mind, but she enjoys the way his fingers twitch in anticipation as he listens through the silence. Some of the sounds are tiny, maybe inaudible to humans. Her fingers brushing over the front of the sweater, the slide of leggings over bare thighs. Others are abrasive and break the quiet. The zipper on the hip of her skirt, the buckles of the harness clacking against each other as she pulls it from her bag.

It’s too quiet.

She looks around the room as she adjusts the harness, landing on the messy nightstand. On the far corner, nearly hanging off the side and ready to crash to the floor, is a Bluetooth speaker. It should do, she supposes, and she’s relieved that she neither has to wade through the awkward quiet nor ask Marius for assistance. It’s completely in her control to go back into her bag for her phone, and the deft mix of Blood Gifts and wireless technology has _Vîrstele pămîntului_ pouring through the room in a matter of seconds.

Better.

He shifts on the bed, patient but strung tight as she finally approaches.She kneels behind him and touches the back of his thighs.

“Men take it for granted,” she says. She scratches a line up his legs and onto his backside, enough for him to feel it but not enough to wound him. “You don’t understand how powerful it feels.”

He’s holding his breath and doesn’t respond.

“I let them fuck me,” she continues. “I can hear their dirty little thoughts. They think they’re in control and they have no idea.”

She looks down at the dildo strapped to her body, rolling her hips and watching the way it gleams. She presses her fingertip to the head and lays a lazy stroke down to the base.She wonders if Marius had been veiny when he was alive. He’ll never be erect like this again, swollen. Maybe if she asks him about it sometime he’ll tell her.

The weight of it there in her palm feels monumental.

“I’m going to fuck you, Marius,” she says. She spreads him apart and the smallest whimper comes from his throat. “It makes me feel powerful.”

He doesn’t answer, but his head hangs, shoulders arched. She stares for a moment, and it’s interesting how they’d slept wrapped around each other for two hundred years and she never saw this part of him. Never had any need to. He’s so pale, but it’s still a dusty light pink. And had he always been so sparsely decorated or was this a result of Mael’s grooming that night, before the sacrifice? She has to bite her lip to keep from asking.

She squeezes his ass as she holds him open and leans in to taste. It’s for his benefit, she thinks, because he barely tastes like anything, and she knew he wouldn’t. But it’s thrilling the way he whimpers again. Humans have done this to her, and she always hears the way it sets their minds on edge, and by vampire standards she can’t say that the sensation is more remarkable than any other, but the act itself unlocks something primal and lewd in her thoughts. The tiny noises he’s making tells her that he’s experiencing the same.

It can be rare to find human men that allow this, but it’s an indulgence she seizes whenever the opportunity arises. If her mouth wasn’t occupied, or if they could communicate without, she’d tell him more about it. About men. It’s not just their dicks that they take for granted, but that so many of them don’t understand the vulnerability of being penetrated.

His silence warms her, makes her thirst pitch. It wouldn’t be unlike him to take this moment to act obtuse, remind her of her superiority to humans, anyway. What right does she have feeling vulnerable? But he obeys. She thinks he understands. 

But he can cooperate when she pushes, can’t he? She pulls back and nips at the smooth white cheek. _It’s symbolic,_ she’d said in the dark, and he was stubborn but he obliged. It’s just a matter of how much she has to push. 

Maybe she’s not just superior to humans. 

She touches him in curiosity, a fingertip circling, gently. Blood will be the best anointment but she isn’t ready to give him the satisfaction of having hers. Instead she grazes his back with her fingernails, enough to see the hair rising in her wake, just a warning before she digs in.  

He draws in a sharp breath, flinches, but remains. And the scratches bloom to ribbons, and for a moment she is breathless. They heal quickly but the blood stays behind, pools in the dents behind his hips. There was a use for blood, she’s aware, she drew it for a reason, but before she can make sense of it she has to lean down and taste it. 

It isn’t the same as drawing it from the source itself—even still warm it is less alive—but it takes the edge off, refreshes her sense of calm. She doesn’t swallow it right away, let’s it hang there. There’s an unchanged base, smoky chypre—the same as it’s always been, but dark notes pulse beneath. It’s sugary-sweet from anguish, like the bruise on an over-ripened fruit. It’s what she remembers plums tasting like. She licks it from her teeth as her fingers paint through the mess on his back. 

When she touches again he’s still tense, and despite the act she’s trying to maintain, she gives him a gentle squeeze on the hip with her free hand. His body uncoils, just enough, and she pushes through. He’s tighter than a human, and his skin is cooler than one but he’s warm inside. It connects with something in her body, something that the Blood understands. It’s like she’s breached their hard outer shell and can feel the alchemy inside. 

She bends herself across him as her fingers move so that she can lick up the excess blood. Beneath the sugary heartbreak, his base flavor is leathery, fills her mind with rich reds and warm nights. It both pleases and alarms her that it’s been two thousand years and the way it hits her tongue and settles in her gut still reminds her of the first night, dying in his arms.

His hair is draped around his face and she almost wishes it was short again so that she could see. He seems younger when he’s obscured like this, perhaps more fragile.And she likes that, she supposes.It’s amusing to her. But she wants to _see him._ She reaches with her free hand to pull his hair back, moving it over his shoulder. As she does it, he turns his head towards her so that she can make out his profile. There’s distress in his face, but not because of what they’re doing. It’s the distress that’s always there, hiding beneath the surface. It seems like an outer layer has been scraped away. 

But it’s not just vulnerability showing. It’s the heavy mess of raw honesty, and she sees the _need._ With the blood in her mouth reminding her of the early nights, she remembers begging him. _Put it in me_. 

And it’s reflected in his face, staring back at her, human crease between his brows as he stares hard. _Put it in me_.

The blood still on his back is slick and fragrant and she makes a swipe across to gather it in her palm. The fingers on her other hand continue to stretch and scissor him as she prepares. She looks down to see the way the dildo fucks into her closed hand, the way the blood taints it to look red. For a moment she thinks it’s a shame it isn’t real, wondering how it would feel now.Even as a vampire she’d like to know.

“Pandora,” he says as she nudges the blunt tip to his entrance. She pulls him apart to watch and sinks in. She likes to think that when it’s time to do this to a human that he’ll hiss and moan and _react_ , and she imagines the way the pheromones will flavor the blood. But Marius stays calm. His lips part and his eyes close but he doesn’t make a sound. 

There’s blood caked around her fingernails and stuck in the lines of her knuckles. She sees it as she grabs him by the hips, watching the way their skin looks against each other. She’s a little darker than he is and her hands are stained red, but the dildo still creates an unnatural contrast from either of them.  She looks away from his face to watch the way it thrusts in and out of his body.Her fingers hook around his hip bones and she holds him in place so that she can slam inside. The motion makes his body jolt and he still doesn’t make any noise. 

Oh, but she does. 

She’s planned on doing this for quite some time now, but had imagined it being a human. He drops down to lean on his elbows, and it fills her with a sense of pride. Later on he’ll flush if she brings this up, she knows already. He’ll act embarrassed that it was so undignified. She’s happy enough that she might even allow him to pretend. 

Sex isn’t the same as it was when she was alive. She still has it, frequently, with her victims. Mostly it’s a mental exercise, she figures. The ritual of it thrills her the way it always has. It’s something she can feel physically in her brain—the thought of it makes her head throb, makes her dizzy in a way that’s pleasant and that she always yearns to feel again. It’s something she chases. But it isn’t the same. Perhaps it’s better.

The base of the dildo presses against her dormant parts. If they still worked like they used to she knows she would be moaning, whining, working harder to grind herself against it. She’d be wet and breathless and so, so gone. But the pleasure is there. Arousal isn’t localized like it is on humans, but the sensation remains. And she doesn’t understand why more vampires don’t indulge—yes, yes, she admits, she’d get the same pleasure from Marius stroking the back of her head, laying kisses to the insides of her wrists, but… why not? Her nails begin to tear holes in his flesh beneath her grip as she continues.And it’s enjoyable, it’s still enjoyable. And she likes how he looks like this. So why not?

_I understand now_ , he’d said earlier. _Why you do it to them._

She hopes so. 

There’s a fragrance coming from the split skin on his hips, even as it mends itself. It makes her throat constrict in thirst. 

“I used to want you to do this to me, Marius,” she says. She hadn’t expected her own voice to sound so rough. “I wanted you to fuck me just like this.”

A small sound comes from him like he’s going to answer, but the words die on his lips and he whimpers. His head hangs and his face is obscured by his hair again. It sways with her rhythm. 

“I wanted you so bad,” she says. “And you’re so damn _tall_ , Marius. The biggest man I’d ever seen.”

Her palm bumps against every line of his vertebrae as she trails upwards to grab a fistful of hair. God, she remembers wanting this. Young men could be so clueless, pawing at her like little dogs, and she’d have to guide them, instruct them. She remembers that feeling, being full with them, almost enjoying herself, and having to tell them. Beg them. _Pull my hair_. And her mind would wander to Marius sometimes, and she’d moan against the sharp pain, and imagine that he wouldn’t need to be told. 

So she pulls his hair, hard, enough to snap his head back as she drills in, and he cries out. _Yes, yes_ , _you enjoy it._  It’s satisfying to know she was right about him. 

He isn’t human and she doesn’t think it will matter, but she slides her other hand down around his hip, to his groin. Her thumb strokes over the neat patch of hair and she wonders again if it’s Mael’s handiwork. 

His cock feels the same as it had that first night, except this time he shudders when she squeezes it. In a completely non-carnal way she thinks she could squeeze him like this for hours, fascinated by this part she doesn’t have. It’s hard, the way most of their bodies have become hard, but not erect. Never erect. But it gives under her hand, just enough, and she strips at it. She pulls his foreskin back, presses her thumb into his head. It’s interesting the way it makes him shake. She thrusts in again and again. 

There’s a crescendo in the music, a tangle of instruments new and old that make the hair rise on her neck. There’s clues around, she knows, and if she focuses she’ll figure it all out, but for a moment she isn’t sure what year it is. She yanks at his hair again and her other hand settles at the base of his cock. The way she squeezes won’t be pleasant on a human, she knows, but Marius takes it well. 

“Show me you want it, Marius,” she says, and her hips go still. She draws herself out, only the tip inside his hole. A tug at his hair, and she drifts lower to feel the shape of his balls in her palm. For a moment he doesn’t react, and she squeezes him. They feel unnatural, not human. It’s vaguely thrilling. “You like it, Marius. Show me you want it.”

And even with his hair pulled taut, he manages to turn his head. It’s only half his face, but she sees the way his mask has peeled, sees the raw desperation. His cheeks have even gone pink with arousal and shame. But he nods, slowly, almost like he’s confused, and starts to rock backwards against her. 

“Yes,” she soothes. “Yes, darling, like that.” 

This is the way she would’ve behaved as a human. Marius was so tall, broad across the shoulders, steady and confident and the blueprint of the men she’d always wanted. She’d always wondered if his dick was big to match, and pictured herself splitting on it, hungry for it, full and working for it. Just like this. It almost makes her laugh, wondering if Marius had wanted the same. She wonders if he’s fucking her the way he’d fantasized about, too. She had been a teenager last time she saw him alive—did he keep that image with him? She was so fresh and young and tight. Did he imagine making her beg for it like this?

The scent of his blood comes to her again, under her nails and drying in a smear across his back. And she can’t take it anymore, she has to have it.

Her hands lock into his hips again, clicking into place in his ilia, and she bends down over him. She’s not tall enough to reach his throat, but curls to put her mouth over his jutting shoulder blade. It’s harder than if she’d gone for his neck, for the stretched tendons and fleshy sinew. Her teeth pierce through easily and hit bone, but it doesn’t make her stop. She can’t see, but she can feel the way it’s denting beneath her fangs, and she feels the way Marius convulses under it. He hisses and moans and his body drops lower to the bed, but he doesn’t shake her off. And the noises he’s making don’t sound entirely displeased.

It’s hard to hear him, though, once the blood hits the roof of her mouth. It’s thick and hot and the flavor she’d been teased with earlier is in full force, woody and sweet like oud and she lets it fill her mouth completely before she swallows. 

Instantly, she can feel his thirst. She’s gone dizzy and has shut her eyes, but her body is still moving, hips still crashing to him. He likes it and he gets it, he feels it the way she feels it, and yet he’s still yearning for her. He needs more, he needs to taste her, he thinks her Blood is the holy sacrament that will complete him. But he’s enjoying her like this. He feels full and sated and dominated in a way he can’t admit he needs, and in his blood she can taste it. He knows she was right. She was right. 

She bites harder, tonguing the edges of his scapula and the sheath of muscle around it. It’s his _infraspinatus_ , she thinks. She knows that word now. And the wound is gushing. He’s aching with need and wants her blood, needs it, and the desire flares in the way he tastes. It deepens to something dark, an undercurrent, and she groans as it fills her. She’ll return the favor, she will. She won’t punish him for too long. But she needs this too much to give up yet. 

But she’s back there again, before she realizes it’s happening. The sunlight flares down through the leaves of the trees and she snaps her eyes open, thinking the vision will clear, but it doesn’t. She’s there, in the garden. The grass is soft beneath her feet and she squints into the light, nervous for a moment that it might burn her this time. It’s too bright, and she brings her hand up to shade her eyes. 

It’s hard to know where or when they are, but something about it feels distinctly Roman, like a myth. It taps into her childhood and her imagination, a distant memory of dreams, the verdant space she used to see in her mind when she’d heard the old poetry. She takes a step from under the cover of the branches, into the warmth of the sun, and it strikes her, a palpable blow, that it’s not her dream. Somewhere in space and time she’s in a dark little room and she’s drinking Marius’s blood, and this is _his_. She’s in his space in a way she’s never been before.

That it’s so in sync with her own vision makes her stop, and it burns in her eyes, and for a moment all she can see is red until she blinks it away.

But Akasha is here. 

She sees once the blood clears and wonders if she’s been there the whole time. 

Maybe it’s Akasha’s vision. Pandora wonders if they’ve been drawn to neutral ground, if it was Akasha’s doing, drawing them both here. 

Her eyes are smoky with kohl, just like Pandora used to do for her, and there’s a tiny loving smile playing on her lips as she extends her hands. _Come_ , the gesture says, _come to me, child._

It doesn’t feel like obeying is a choice.

She’s drawn to Akasha, pulled to her, mesmerized by the sight of her in the sun. She’s wearing bangles and rings that glint in the light, and the fabric of her dress is so fine that her nipples are showing. Pandora doesn’t realize she’s reaching to touch one until she’s already done it, tracing it with a thumb as she cups Akasha’s breast. She goes to kiss Akasha’s neck, to taste her, drink from the Sacred Fount, but a gentle hand on her chin diverts the movement. She kisses Akasha’s lips instead.

It’s been such a long time. 

Akasha strokes her on her lower back, squeezes her hips, bites playfully at her bottom lip. There are no fangs, no blood, but the quick wisp of pain shocks through her, and she suddenly feels human and weak and vulnerable. It flickers in her gut and aches between her legs. And Akasha pulls away to smirk at her, putting her hands on either side of her face. Her skin seems natural, mortal, tawny and warm but… there’s still power here. Pandora feels confused by it, disoriented, dizzy. They’re not human, but not quite vampire, either. Somewhere between.

There’s a moment where she wonders if she’s heard words, or thoughts, but it’s silent save for the garden around them. The leaves rustle and she can hear birds, and chimes somewhere, a fountain. Akasha doesn’t speak but the devotion is stitched in, instinctual. She squeezes Akasha’s breast again through the thin linen and touches the woven belt at her waist for permission. _Let me, let me_ , she wants to say, but saying it out loud seems harsh, like it might disturb the serenity. Akasha seems to read her, anyway. Not quite vampire but still omnipotent. Her hands come down over Pandora’s and loosen the belt for her.

She distantly remembers that she’s somewhere else, that Marius is in her hands, that he’s sharp lines and hard bones. It’s nighttime and he’s cold and his body has been carved and weathered by millennia. But it’s hazy, far away, she’s not sure it’s real. Akasha’s body is more important. It’s all supple curves and soft skin and she leans in to kiss again as Akasha’s hands work between them to untie her belt. She touches Akasha’s throat, feeling the steady, calm pulse in her hands. 

This time, she presses her tongue through. And the acceptance of it is soft, weightless, sweet and patient. The inside of her mouth tastes like blood and it lights up between her legs again. She wonder if she’s getting wet, but it’s hard to know. It’s been too long. But there’s something about women, about kissing women, that feels wholly more pure and easy than it feels with men. _Beautiful_. 

She isn’t bleeding, Pandora thinks. Blood isn’t gathered there in her mouth. It’s just the way she tastes, and just the idea of it is a tease. She isn’t entirely sure where she is, and the memories don’t make sense—she can’t specifically recall piercing through the marble-white skin or that it was deep underground somewhere, in the night. Night seems far away now, like a thing that doesn’t really exist. It isn’t that she remembers drinking from the Mother, it’s just that the taste of her feels like home, like something she’s been missing. She’s sugary like dates and Pandora sucks at her tongue to savor it.

But then Akasha’s skin is bare, the dress fluttering to the ground, and the small hands are on her shoulders, easing her away. It isn’t a refusal or rejection, she realizes as much once she sees Akasha’s face, but the gentle pressure is forcing her downwards, to her knees. She touches Akasha’s thighs and kisses her belly, in the soft space below her navel. When she sucks at the skin it tastes like saffron milk.

Akasha is petting the back of her head and Pandora tilts back to see the pretty face. Her hair sways as she looks down, still open and warm. There are beads plaited into her hair that bump together as she moves, and Pandora remembers putting them there herself. She’d sat in Akasha’s lap for hours, combing her hair, braiding it, decorating. Her devotion is limitless.

Her hands rub higher, to the crease where Akasha’s legs meet her body, and she begins to kiss lower, into the cradle of her pelvis, then the short cropped hair. The anticipation of is it burning in her own body, but Akasha stops her before she can reach the most sacred part. There’s a soft force on her shoulders and she’s pushed away, and there’s a moment where she doesn’t understand before Akasha is sinking down to her knees, as well. She leaves a kiss on Pandora’s cheek on her way to lay back in the grass. There was a gold belly chain beneath her clothes, Pandora sees now, and it gleams in the sunlight. She has the urge to lean in and bite it.

No sound comes to her, not in her head or our loud, Akasha doesn’t speak, but Pandora feels the command somehow. Their eyes are locked as she nods her head, and Akasha opens her legs languidly to present herself. The way Pandora bows in towards her feels like she’s praying, arranged on elbows and knees. 

She touches first. It’s experimental, exploratory. Her fingers lay flat in the valley between the folds and Akasha’s hips roll upward, pleased. Her skin is so soft, so warm, nothing like how cold she’d felt in the dark. The warmth is blooming in her hand, and Akasha’s breasts undulate as her breaths get deeper. It’s an encouragement and Pandora basks in the approval. It makes her stroke lower, to the wet heat, and she twists her wrist to touch the inside. Wet and hot like blood and her heart is starting to pound. 

Her other hand strokes the soft skin inside Akasha’s thigh, holding her open so that she can lean in to taste. Tongue follows fingers at first, dipping into her hole because it’s too hard to resist. She feels Akasha touching the back of her head as she does, scratching lightly into her scalp, and it encourages her to focus there. There’s a sharpness that comes first, citrusy and tart, and runs her fingers in a circle around the edges as her tongue laps in and out. It’s familiar and feminine and she’s transfixed by it, stuck in this world here, another life, but it’s over quickly, burned away as the heart note comes through. _Like blood._ She isn’t bleeding—Pandora can see that she’s not bleeding, it isn’t blood. But the way she’s beginning to drip is just as satisfying and so familiar that Pandora’s entire body ripples with arousal. Sugary like dates. Pandora moans.

There’s thirst burning in her, and she licks a line upward to Akasha’s clit, laving it gently, hand squeezing her thigh in a matching rhythm. It’s making her feel tense all over, and she doesn’t remember desire feeling so full-bodied when she was alive. She doesn’t know if she’s alive, isn’t sure what year it is, but she can see the sheen of Akasha’s skin in the _sunlight_ and sees the way her back is arching, shoulders pressing into the ground, eyes closed as she turns her head down against the grass. _Devotion,_ she thinks again, and the act alone of pleasuring Akasha is alleviating the tension. 

She curls her fingers inside, slow and firm, pressing patterns to spots that are making Akasha shudder. Still no noise, but her brow is pinching and she rubs her cheek on the ground, bites her lip. 

But it’s aching between her own legs, throbbing, and she needs to touch. She attempts to, intending to mirror what she’s doing to Akasha in herself, but when she touches it’s just the strap on again. 

And she remembers. 

Her ears ring and her head swims and the taste is cloying in her mouth but she’s suddenly aware it isn’t real. She squeezes at the base of it and it’s rubbery and firm and she wonders if it’s what Akasha wants, but something tells her _no_. _No_. It isn’t verbal, but Akasha’s hand on the back of her head is soft and suggestive and she’s cradled her skull so lovingly as if she can put the thought there. Maybe she can. 

She pulls away. Her mouth comes up off of Akaska’s parts, and off Marius’s shoulder blade, and she can taste a mixture of both of them in her mouth as her eyes adjust from the daytime skies to the dull yellow lamplight in his room. The music is chaotic, flowing from the Bluetooth speaker, a mess of blast beats and ancient horns and guttural screaming that breaks her skin out with chills. She slows her motions and squeezes the flesh at his sides. 

He looks over his shoulder, and she’s expecting him to question why she’s stopped, but the look on his face is so _wrecked_ and knowing and it hits her in an instant that _he saw it_. And she isn’t sure if the actions were her own. Maybe she was playing on a track, maybe it was something he’d always imagined. 

“Marius,” she mumbles, a little out of breath and her mouth still full of blood. She swallows and it lights up her whole body, it’s in her toes and tingling in her scalp and she’s shaking. There’s a pitch in colors, in sensations, the way his blood always does to her. The room expands around them for a moment, the details waver and deepen. 

She’s here with him, truly here, it’s real, but she wants to go back and she wants to bring him. 

She pulls out and flips him over and he seems startled and breathless as he looks up at her. The edges of his eyes are red. 

“Come with me,” she says, and holds him by his wrist as she pushes back in.  He touches her face and she bends herself over him so that he can pull her hand closer. She begins again, thrusting in and out, but they’re each performing the ritual through it, kissing at the blue veins in each other’s wrists, licking gently, sucking so that they swell. 

His eyes are so blue. 

There’s a cadence between them, unspoken but tugging at her, and their fangs each sink in at the same time. There’s a split second of searing red pain radiating from his bite before she realizes that her whole body has gone sensitive with it and the silicone base of the dildo grinds into her clit. It isn’t more or less pleasurable than the hard teeth entering her, but the two sensations are overwhelming. She bites harder at his wrist, reveling in the way the taste is smoothing the ragged edges of her nerves, and she can see in his face that he’s feeling the same. His thighs crush inward, a reflex, around her hips, and he moans into the wound. 

_Marius._

No one else alive will ever know him when he’s young. 

Her eyes shut, and she can hear the way her voice has gone high as she whines into his skin. There’sa cycle here, a closed loop, this sharing of their life force. And she feels him, truly. His pain is fragmented and she sees it in flashes. The husk of Enkil’s body. The Veil. His Amadeo’s face through the flames. The empty courtyard in Antioch.

_Akasha, Akasha, Akasha._

And she sees the shrines, the murals, the house in Rome. Her own face in each. Apollo and Daphne and she can taste the ashes.

But it’s the garden. It’s their garden. And she thrusts again and draws herself away from his blood and they’ve lapsed back. He’s splayed out in the sunlight and his hair is gold and his skin is warm and living and healthy and suddenly she can feel all of it, every inch as if it’s really her own body.

“Pandora,” he pants, and says it again and again like a prayer.

“That’s it, love,” she says. She hikes his legs up, over her shoulders, and drives into him. She can feel the way his muscles squeeze around her and there’s noise tumbling from her mouth, fully out of her own control.

And Akasha.

_Akasha._

She feels the soft breasts pressed up against her back, and turns to see the small hands, holding Marius’s legs in place. Lips kissing the shell of her ear and nibbling on a lobe, and the hands stroke down past Marius’s shins to pinch lightly at her nipples. She can feel the dildo as if it’s her own appendage but can still feel the awakened real parts, feels the way the energy squirms inside, how the arousal goes slick between her legs.

Marius is watching in a haze, his jaw slack and eyes hooded. Just as Pandora can feel her human parts reacting, she sees now that Marius is hard, his erection swollen and bold against his stomach. It’s red with blood, and there’s a single thick blue vein pulsing on the underside, and he’s beginning to drip onto himself.

It’s not clear like it should be. It’s tinged with red and she can smell it and she wipes it with a fingertip so that she can taste. Bitter at first, as one would expect, but it quickly balances to something familiar. Smoky sweet like burnt wood, the way he’s always been.

Akasha pulls away, opening Pandora’s skin to the warm air, but a hand rubbing the small of her back tells her to keep doing what she’s doing. Akasha kisses the top of her head as she stands and moves to walk around them.

She knows, truly, that this is Marius at his most desperate and flayed. He doesn’t speak but she can see the way he’s begging with his eyes, she sees the shame and the way it incites the carnal need in spite of himself. He must feel pathetic, undignified, at Pandora’s mercy and unable to show Akasha the respect she deserves. He’s devoted, he wants to kneel before her, and kiss the inside of her ankle, and offer himself. But he can’t.

Pandora digs her nails into the meat of his thighs and his back arches off the grass.

Akasha is smiling down at him. It isn’t malicious, but it’s condescending. But she’s amused, patient, and she nudges the side of his head with her foot. He takes it in both hands and kisses her arch. Her head turns, and the beads rattle in her hair, and she watches Pandora’s face, brushes her knuckles against Pandora’s cheek.

 _Inamorata_ , Pandora thinks, and she wonders if Akasha heard her. Her smile goes softer for Pandora, sympathetic and loving and Pandora’s hair is standing up under the attention and approval. It’s suddenly more important than her own needs.

Marius is moaning and he goes to touch himself, but Akasha steps lightly on his wrist to stop him. It makes all the blood rush to Pandora’s skin, and between the heat of arousal and the comforting sunlight she can feel sweat tickling at her scalp. Her body is become frantic, chasing the release that she hasn’t needed this whole time, and she’s shaking as she watches the way Akasha sinks down. Her eyes don’t leave Pandora’s face as she lowers herself until she’s straddling Marius’s face.

He’s trembling beneath her, and Pandora can’t see his expression but she sees the way the tendons in his neck strain, sees the way his jaw moves as he pays tribute. The muscles in his abdomen are rippling, clenching, and the red tinged precum is smearing trails across his skin.

She wants to touch. She looks from Marius to Akasha, unsure what’s respectful, unsure which feels the best. She can see the blue veins in the underside of his tongue as he laps at her clit, and sees the dark contrast of Akasha’s areolas against her creamy tanned skin. The hard nipples, the full lips, the dark eyes. Deep and hypnotic, black and lustrous like onyx. But Akasha finally reaches across and runs her fingers across Pandora’s nipple, presses her palm into the soft mound, so Pandora does the same. Akasha’s are smaller, tighter, and she loves the way they fit perfectly into her hand.

Marius reaches up to hold Akasha by the legs, and his ankles cross behind Pandora’s head. He’s groaning and the way Akasha’s lips part make Pandora think she must be able to feel it reverberating through the flesh.

He wants to come, Pandora realizes. His hips are coming off the ground and his balls are drawing up closer to his body. His cockhead is so strained, going purple.

Akasha looks down at it and raises and eyebrow, completely nonchalant. It keeps Pandora from taking him in hand, like she doesn’t have permission.

Instead of tending to him, Akasha places both her hands on his chest so that she can lean forward and kiss. They join over him, and Pandora reaches to touch Akasha’s hair, her jaw, her neck.

This is what she’d wanted.

There’s a dim awareness in her gut that they aren’t here, that time doesn’t exist in this place, that she’s a cold thing, hard and lonely and stuck in the dark. But she feels Akasha’s tongue in her mouth and the reality of it washes away. She can’t think of this now. Because the truth of it…

Marius is writhing.

The truth of it is that Akasha is gone. 

Her heart is racing and she wants to cry, but her head is swimming and she can’t remember why. And she can’t breathe, she can’t breathe, but it isn’t the panic, it’s because her insides are twisting, her fingertips are numb, toes are curling and it’s all too much as it crashes over.

Akasha bites down on her bottom lip before drawing away, teasing her by tugging at it as she settles her weight back down over Marius. She looks pleased and Pandora is so glad, but everything is a mess and she doesn’t know where to focus. She hasn’t come down yet.

The gold rings shine in the light and catch her eyes as Akasha reaches to take Marius in hand. She starts with deliberate slow strokes, eyes on Pandora the whole time, and her thumb runs in circles over his head. Pandora is wrung out and on the edge of oversensitive but she manages to keep moving just a little longer. Akasha’s hand is deft, graceful, and when Marius finally spills over her, painting red stripes across his own chest, his voice is muffled by her flesh. And Pandora is still stretched taut with aftershock, but the sound of him makes her want to come again. But her heart is thundering in her ears, and her chest is heaving, and… and… _she was part of us._

“Pandora,” he’s whining, and it’s the real world. She’s shaking all over and the room is red through the sheen of unshed tears. 

Her motions halt and she looks around them. The music is ethereal and frightening and she thinks the album may have started over, she has no idea how long it’s been.

“Pandora,” he says, but his voice is even this time. Soft and calm. She blinks and her vision clears and she feels it rolling on her face.

His thumb brushes the tears away.

Akasha is gone.

Something is burning in her chest, but it isn’t the frenetic sexual energy from moments before. It’s rage and hurt and injustice and she sees the final moments again, in Sonoma, and they’re in this tiny room and no one else will ever know. It’s an isolated grief that so few will ever appreciate in the face of the mythos.

“You understand now,” he says. He props himself up on his elbows and her body curls inward around herself. She’s still inside him. He tucks her hair behind her ear and holds her by the back of the neck. “ _Aut laribus ferale caput: deseratque busta incolit, et tumulos expulsis obtinet umbris, grata dies erebi.”_

His legs cross behind her back and it pulls her closer, pushes her deeper, and she’s close enough to kiss now. She goes for the throat. 

It gushes hotter here, stronger, but the _folie à deux_ is over, burnt out of them both. It’s just comfort now, familiarity, intimacy. He tilts his head to make space for her and bites into her neck, as well.

It’s strange and exhilarating, the pull of blood loss setting off alarms in her body coupled with the instant replenishment. And his blood is so rich, so strong. She’s powerful, she knows. She can admit it. And Marius should be her peer, but these moments make it so painfully obvious how grotesque he is. It’s a chasm between them. All the years apart, and all the blood from the Mother. 

But he tastes the same. He’s a constant. They could be here, in this room, with his petty broken heart, or they could be in the dark sarcophagus in Antioch. She wraps her arms around his shoulders and remembers all the mornings, right before dawn, curling up at his back, hugging him around the waist. Whispering poetry in his ear. 

_Coetus audire silentum, nosse domos Stygias arcanaque Ditis operti, non superi, non vita vetat._

His hands rub up and down her back and she melts against him, laps at the wounds until they close, kisses his jaw, his cheek, his brow. He leans back, holds her at arms length to watch her face. Brushes stray hair out of her eyes.

“ _Tenet ora profanae, foeda situ macies, coeloque ignota sereno. Terribilis Stygio facies pallore gravati, impedisce onerata comis.”_

 

 

 

They’re quiet after. The music lulls them and she drapes herself over his chest. The dildo presses uselessly into his hip but he doesn’t notice, or care, and keeps petting her hair like it’s the most natural thing in the world. 

“Would you like tea?” he finally asks. She’s surprised by how much the idea delights her. It’s unexpected but wonderfully fitting. 

It’s tempting to stay nude, but when they untangle from each other she feels the night chill in the air. She wants to be warm and comfortable and wants to hold tea and sit with him. She removes the harness and puts her clothes back on, wraps herself back up in his sweater. And she watches the way he stares at the closet door for a moment, and the way he hesitates, the way his motions stutter before he pulls the hoodie down and puts it on. She doesn’t tease him, doesn’t comment, just lets him lead her to the kitchen.

She walks a leisurely circle around the kitchen island as he rummages through the cabinets. For someone who doesn’t eat they’re quite full, but when she comes closer to watch she sees it’s all teas and spices and herbs. It smells nice. It’s typical of him. Methodical, orderly, even considering that they won’t actually be drinking it. She wouldn’t have cared so much, she knows, but Marius is laser-focused and obsessive as he begins the water boiling. He measures the leaves carefully, from two different jars, and sets them in two different teapots. And then he waits, in silence, awkward and boyish like he doesn’t know what to say.

Her energy for ragging on him isn’t completely replenished, so she doesn’t tease, but she makes her rounds through the kitchen, curiously opening drawers, looking at spices, checking the refrigerator. She’s always fascinated by the kitchens of blood drinkers. It makes her smile. 

“You have soda,” she says. There’s extra candles and rolls of film and expensive looking lotion, but also the half-empty six pack of Coke bottles. 

Marius looks wounded for a moment but tries to cover it. He touches his fingertips to the side of the kettle to check the temperature as he shrugs. “Daniel brought friends over sometimes.”

The refrigerator door closes with a loud thunk. She holds the handle as she turns and looks at him. He pours the water in one teapot but not the other, glancing at the clock and putting the kettle back. It takes a moment for him to look at her again.

They’re both blood drunk and soft, wrung out and exhausted. It’s a pleasant exhaustion, a sated afterglow, enough to keep the squirming threat of anger at bay as she studies him. She won’t admit to herself how frightening it is, how nervous it makes her, anticipating that his mask might come back up, that he’ll turn away and pretend he isn’t upset. The fear is distant, the volume turned low, and she doesn’t want to indulge it until she has to.

But he doesn’t look away. 

She can still taste his blood in her mouth, still taste Akasha’s womanhood, and she concentrates on the cool metal handle of the refrigerator to keep from collapsing against him. This is what she wanted, she knows, this raw honesty. The corner of his eye twitches and his jaw is clenched. It’s ugly and hard to look at but she’s relieved to see it there. And that she’s successful where she didn’t expect to be is disarming. She realizes there wasn’t a plan and she isn’t sure what to do.

He breaks her gaze to turn the stove off, still holding his fingers against the belly of the kettle, and before he tends to the other teapot he steps closer and touches her face. His hand is warm like a human, and when he kisses her cheek on the warm spot her heart flutters.

She watches the way he makes the tea, amused and heartbroken all at once, sensing his neurotic need for order. He begins to clean up while the tea steeps, and fetches mugs from one of the cupboards, and when it’s time she watches the way he pours both, alternating from both pots, until both mugs are steaming with the mixture. She would’ve been happy making it in the microwave, but watching his reverence and concentration is oddly comforting. He’s still tender and stripped bare when he hands one to her with a little smile. She holds it near her face and inhales the steam. It smells like and ginger and dates.

“Let’s go outside,” she says. She reaches to take his hand and leads him through his own house, not even sure where she’s going, navigating the dark rooms until she finds a back door. It’s a crisp, clear night, and she doesn’t stop until they’re in the middle of the backyard. They’re still holding hands when they sit down in the grass.

She doesn’t quite know where they are, exactly, but the house is isolated. It’s clearly in the mountains somewhere. They’re surrounded by trees and for the first time in months she can’t hear the sounds of the century around them. Just the insects and night birds and soft rustling of leaves in the wind. She lies down in the grass and holds the mug against her stomach, warm through her clothes, and Marius follows suit. He moves sideways so that he can rest his head on her thigh. 

It’s hard not to think about the garden again, and she swallows around a lump in her throat. The sky is expansive, frightening, unknowable. It’s beautiful and glittering and mystical but it’s cold and black and it’s the only one they’ll ever know now. She strokes his hair and adjusts around the weight of the idea, as she’s had to do often in her life, and wonders if he’s doing the same. It isn’t something he’s ever been very candid about with her. He’s arranged himself to have order, purpose, giving his life rigid, severe structure to make all of it work. But he didn’t even choose this.

They seem closer to the sky up here.

He’s heavy and large, pinning her legs to the ground, but the thought of him being forced into all of it throbs in her chest. Strong and tall and powerful but she feels so overwhelmed by the surge of protectiveness. And they’re adrift here, another speck in the sky like all the stars, and… 

“I’ve been thinking about going underground again,” he says. It shatters the quiet and her hand goes still where she’s been petting him. She can see the frown etched into his face, like he’s surprised he even said it out loud, and for a moment she’s just frozen there. But this is what she wanted.

She doesn’t want to hurt him, or reject him, and doesn’t want to stop touching him, but her hand is beginning to tremble and she also doesn’t want him to know. Instead she pulls back and rests it on his shoulder, squeezing lightly so that she can try to hide it. 

It was hard, she can admit to herself, piecing together the lost years. She’d carried her own burdens as well, of course—she’s lived a long life. And it was hard not knowing where he was, wondering, aching. Filling in the gaps after, little by little, always brings the old feelings back. He’d told her how he went underground. How Rome burned. Picturing him as dead and still as the Parents is enough to make her sick.

_Don’t,_ she wants to say. _Don’t go_. _Don’t do it._ But she thinks it might be the wrong response.

Instead: “I can’t beg you not to.”

He sets the tea down in the grass and presses both hands to his eyes. “I know that.”

Maybe it feels real. She looks up to see the faint blue creeping into the sky and wonders if it still counts as sincerity if he’s under the spell of the approaching dawn, drowning in the emotional twilight the way he used to. The thought that it might wear off by the time they wake up in the evening fills her with revulsion. 

In the past, in the beginning, this is a space where he might lash out. It’s where he might start begging or making demands or storm away completely. Even the memory of it makes her feel cold inside. They have phones now, she reminds herself. They have the others. But the idea alone reminds her of how she lost him.

His jaw flexes and a vein rises in his temple. 

She wonders how hard she should push, and chews on her lip as she considers the options. Instinct tells her to offer to stay, but even now, even after what they’ve shared, it still feels like a trap. For a horrendous moment she imagines that it wouldn’t even help, pictures them both underground, coiled together and collecting dust. It makes her chest go tight. 

“I…” his voice cracks and he pauses, taking a moment before he can try again. “I want you to stay.”

He turns on his side so that he can face her, and reaches for her hand. 

“I’m not… asking,” he amends. “I know I shouldn’t ask you.”

The words sink like a weight inside.

_I can’t_ , she wants to tell him, and wishes he’d understand. No Mind Gift, never the Mind Gift, but there’s too much to say that won’t fit into words. And still, saying _no_ out loud is so ruthless, even for her, especially with his eyes looking up at her like that. Vulnerable and nervous. It’s so unlike the Marius that anyone else can know.

Before she can answer, his hand pulls away like he’s been burned, and he holds it against his chest. And she wants to cry because he knew the answer. No Mind Gift, but he could still read it there in her face. He’s frayed, and maybe he’s even honest, broken down to the smallest parts. His eyes are pure apology and she doesn’t even notice his skin anymore, the way he’s gone hard like an ancient. He looks as young and lost as he’s always been. It makes her sigh.

“I’m the only one who will ever know you when you’re young and stupid,” she says. 

It gets him to smile, and he turns his head to hide half his face in her leg. “Are you trying to tell me I’ve matured?”

“No,” she touches his chin. “Now you’re just old and stupid.” 

The approaching dawn is creeping into her joints, making her drowsy. They need to have a bigger conversation and she needs to know it won’t wear off by the time they’re awake. She tears her eyes away and looks back up to the sky, not sure if she can say no to his face. 

“If I stay…” she looks at Arcturus and her eyes trace the shape of Boötes. “If I stay, you need to know that it’s because I want to.”

He gently squeezes her side in assent. 

“And I can’t decide that tonight.” 

She looks down and he’s still watching, reverent. 

“Not tonight,” he says.

“Not tonight.”

He sits up and turns, crawls closer, wraps around her. Kisses her temple. Her tea has gone cold and she sets it aside to turn to him, bury her face in his chest. In the thick hoodie. Sunrise soon but they have a little more time out here, and she wants to hear his voice the way she used to.

“Talk to me,” she mumbles. “Tell me more.”

“ _Sideribus,_ ” he says. His voice rumbles in his chest. “ _Quae sola fugam moderantur Olympi, occurruntque polo, diversa potentia prima mundi lege data est. Sol tempora dividit anni, mutat nocte diem, radiisque potentibus astra ire vetat, cursuque vagos statione moratur. Luna suis vicibus Tethyn terrenaque miscet.”_

She’ll decide when they wake. 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Say hi on Tumblr :)](https://monstersinthecosmos.tumblr.com/post/175265110019/so-falls-the-world)


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